Combat AI exploit (AKA space chicken)

[corundscale]

Combat AI seems to try to maintain manageable velocity during approach.

If you turn towards enemy ship and accelerate, the enemy will turn and try to kill excess relative velocity by thrusting away from you. If they cannot compensate (when you have better acceleration) you can chase down and destroy the enemy ship with complete impunity, nullifying any challenge.

[Cosm1cGam3r]

Sadly I don't understand what you are talking about. But one thing I know for sure. Combat in this game is the worst possible. F:E2 was playable because of real like lasers so it was firing at the right moment and that combat mechanics was ok for how F:E2 was handled in terms of ship control. And pioneer with those magic beam thing like in retarded star wars movie it makes this game total crap in terms of combat. This game ship control mechanics is huge mistake to use it with magic short beam like weapons. Combat is so annoying and crap that I really start to have need to use some or cheat that would disable combat somehow because that dumb design is not for my nerves or more likely I am starting to be more and more pushed away from this game. If I was only flying etc. it was fun but when I got to combat I am so annoyed by this game that I feel need to just delete it forever. If there would be some mod that would bring back what F:E2 had which is real lasers then I would play it with combat. But without it only flying can be not enough after some time. But now I am sure that this combat as it is now is total turnoff for me. To much mouse aim struggle while holding button is tiresome and annoying as ^#@$%@ Another funny thing i discovered is that when I buy better cannon and do the same combat then more enemies are added with better weapons lol. More mouse acrobatics! FUUUUUUUUUU

[impaktor]

@Cosm1cGam3r I can't even hit docked ships when flying at 5 m/sec at 100 m altitude. I agree combat is shit (or I am) since I can't hit anything.

However, there was an issue with direct firing lasers I think, so this current system was used as a hack. (Maybe someone can confirm this?)

[corundscale]

Frontier's combat only worked because AI was crippled (with lasers, at least, it was surprisingly good with missiles) - if it was as good as semi-decent player, then it would amount to shooting first and having more shields/bigger laser.

Unavoidable attack (laser hits pretty much instantly at distances involved) and nothing to hide behind just don't mix well.

And I don't know, but I can dogfight well enough in Pioneer. The most challenging part is getting close enough to score hits while effectively flying up the stream of projectiles.

To replicate the issue, have lightly equipped ship with good thrust (you need better acceleration than enemy), thrust towards incoming hostile keeping closing velocity beyond their comfort zone (you can recognize it by closing velocity dropping rapidly the moment you release or reduce thrust, there will also be no incoming fire even when you drop below few km range, and aim for final approach velocity (when reaching visual range) of around 100m/s. You should see enemy thrusting away from you and essentially helpless against your incoming fire.

[Cosm1cGam3r]

@impaktor

How why and for what reason that canon (magic projectile whatever) was implemented into Pioneer I don't know. I very briefly read long time ago on forums why someone decided to put that cannon thing instead of lasers. I don't remember that discussion but to be honest I remember I didn't like that reasoning.

@carundscale. It was mostly something like this: Lasers bad bad no skill to fast to instant no skill BLAH BLAH BLAH. For me that was big B_S_! because in frontier lasers was on purpose made to have (silly but it worked well for gameplay....) spread which made hit/miss lottery EVEN if we had perfectly alligned ship!

That is why those cannon lovers are wrong about combat being to simple.

Mechanics of Pioneed is almost the same as frontier and combat is to freaking long with those cannons because I must hold that f** RMB which is frustrating and so freaking tiresome! I tried it with 3 f*g mouses and every time my hand is killing me!

I asked in forums and in other places ADD TOGGLE BUTTON! then it would be less tiresome and less frustrating. It would only left boredom in tracking/holding aim on that point that is showing where to shoot.

They wanted to make some skill based combat but they ruined it even more if we assume that laser combat was wrong, cannon combat (constant track of that hit point) is even worse.

I also forgot to mention that when I hold my mouse right mouse button and try to fire my cannon (blah) from time to time my invisible cursor ends up on pause button and my game is pausing and it is even more frustrating.

I remember my first combat in Pioneer it was needed to be reloaded few times because I was in shuttle (bugged one which was able to use hyperjump and as I read it was not suppose to have that possibility) I took mission with danger element and after I jumped I was attacked by some bigger ship that destroyed me couple times but I managed to SLOWLY destroy him with basic 1MW cannon but it was quite long and required maneuvers and dodging. I cannot say that it was fun but I managed to defeat him.

On one of last builds of this game I risked taking job with danger but that was horror. After jumping I was ganked by 2 ships. No chance to defeat them. I tried to reload and on station I tried to buy better guns to deal with them maybe. But it turn out to be even more f**\ hard. There was third ship added and all of them had stronger weapons. I tried even to buy shield but ho chance at all.

So I was put in situation when there is no chance to get through. I had to just ignore that passenger and haul his a\ for about 2 months till he decided to bail on nearest space station.

Another bug with this cannon system and that FIRE point gameplay is that when they are close to me but moving fast and that FIRE point is very long it is is causing that fire point to disappear if ship is outside of my view and moving fast.

Bringing back lasers or making choose option for player before start if he want cannon or laser then it would be better for game. I personally don't want to play with those cannons. Game lose interest for me because I dont want to lose my nerves and die because of heart attack. I want to be helthy and not stress myself with stupid gameplay aspect. From time to time I will just run this game and have fun for a brief while just by going to planets, orbit them, land on them ect. But flying in galaxy and trying to avoid combat is just boring because I cannot make missions that I liked in F:E2 Package deliveries and passenger transport. I don't want also to not fight because it was fun to gain that rank in combat.

I personally would make ships less rotation able... slower and I would add that laser from F:E2 that was in funny way made to have little random hit point. Bigger ships would have turrets that could be maned by crew and smaller ships would rotate way less. That would be more real because now I can rotate them with speed that would cause blackouts in pilot and passengers.

Lasers was more fun and combat was not so tedious. One thing sucked in F:E2 it was ability to autopilot on other ship and just shoot then break and repeat. i remember when I discovered that then it was less fun to fight.

Current combat system reminds me all those arcade games with imaginary skill based gameplay. Freelancer, Darkstar One, X series. Where we was forced to focus only on that dumb firing point and hoping that most of our fire would hit enemy and if he maneuvered then combat prolonged so it was best to just go as closest ass possible to enemy and fire at that fire point that was just closer to ship then. Is it fun and skill based? Absolutely not. I don't understand people who see that as skill based. People are insane trying to made some skill based combat in space. Just make freaking weapon and let player use it without hurting his freaking hand and suffer lost in nerves.

As I mentioned and I mention it again. Ships are rotating in all axes way to fast and in Pioneer that combat is like combat in Freelancer, Darkstar One, X3 series. But way way worst. In mentioned games player at least don't need to hold that freaking button and game don't pause from time to time and most important thing for such combat style..... SHIPS WAS NOT FREAKING GOING ABOVE FREAKING 1 Ks ! I twas waaaaay slower that is why projectile based weapons make slight sense in combat! In Pioneer it is just DUMB!

Oh I tried to go 50 m/s 100 m/s 200 m/s and use thrusters but that was still tiresome because they was flying like flies around me. When I go faster I cannot dodge and they land every freaking projectile on me from 2-3 ships!

If I buy better weapon then combat ends just faster because they have better weapons too (same save before depart and jump to that system) so enemies adopt to my equipment!

It is not skill based game it is still who have better weapon, shield etc. Player only needs to try to make up some dodge system and try to hold that damn fire point in his crosshair. It is tedious not skill based!

In F:E2 it was more fun, just like that! Punch for punch? Not really because of that random hit point (laser recoil xD ) but it was FUN!

Some people say that lasers are not plausible as weapon and not realistic. I love realism but I am not freak about it. Also lasers are way MORE realistic than that cannon thing. I don't understand why people even judge lasers as not realistic. It is dumb to say that they are not realistic. People use them to destroy rockets, planes so they work! They can be visible as well by using proper equipment. In sci-fi or just games in future it is even easier to explain such things as visibility even sound in space can be generated in cockpit by computer that analyses visual data.

Creator of Pioneer just wanted to have that freaking projectiles and he implemented that so he can ignore people who would want it out of that game. And ignore that he create design from F:E2 for everything but those lasers was no no for him. Ok.... OK! It is his creation. Of course it is not my game, not my design I cannot change it but I just state my opinion with criticism. Maybe that would help in some redesign maybe. I don't know. I am just sad that I cannot play F:E2 remake that started to be something else and now there is no good game that would be remake or would be very close to what F:E2 was. Pioneer was the closest and best one. I played some modern remakes but they are bugged I also played emulated F:E2 but they are buggy, slowing down and create many other problems. I really liked Pioneer but that cannon thingy was pushing me away from this game and now it is more and more annoying to point that I am in right now. My enjoyment just hit bottom. If it is not possible to create 2 combat modes that would be choose able by player and both camps would be happy then to bad. I personally have no more patience and I am worried about my health :) Lots of nervous, and frustration and swearing just damage my heart so I will not risk playing it anymore :) I just can't play it anymore even If I love other aspects of this game.

[jmf]

The weapons have previously been an object of discussion. It is nearly impossible to hit enemies with the current weapons and win a fight (except for when you exploit the dumbness of the AI). Different things have been proposed, for example an aiming computer that helps with aiming when you are aiming in a specified area around the enemy ship. Also laser beam weapons were discussed. I am not sure where the discussion ended but nothing changed until now. I guess that nobody found time to do it but since it is an open source game, everybody can contribute and implement a better system. ;)

Anyway - this shouldn't be discussed here.I think that the dev forum is the right place to take this. In addition to this, the original issue wasn't about weapon strength at all but about the AI - which is a completely different problem.

[Cosm1cGam3r]

@jmf I tried this games combat with 3 different controllers. Mouse of course and it just sucks and is huge mistake for that projectile based combat. I tried gamepad but my gamepad sucks because it lacks in precision. (logitech chillstream that small one. I don't recommend that piece of ** :) ) and also I played it with joystick (logitech extreme 3D pro and I also don't recommend that because it is very bad. At lest older manufactured ones). But last one gives most fun in terms of immersion. In all cases it was way to hard. I was not able to destroy even one ship in my base ship (and I am always attacked by 2-3 AI which throws LOTS of projectiles at me) Maybe I should not go into maneuver instead just throttle to destination because that way once I was able to fight only with one out of 2 ships. Other one lost himself in space I think. Anyway I damaged him to about 15% but he destroyed me. Anyway missions with that kind of danger are not worth it. Ship damage cost more than those dumb missions rewards and combat is huge pain in the *! And give ZERO fun. Good that I don't know that exploit because I would stop playing it way earlier.

If it would my decision then I already wrote about it. Make ships slower in rotation (G-forces safety) and bring back those lovely real lasers and just make then as in F:E2 with silly but fun recoil (random hit point) and also disable that silly mouse control and instead of that make mouse control as emulation of joystick. That way it would be fun to play with joysticks and mouses would not be so powerful in aiming.

And do something with those retarded AI especially police xD they don't know what surface is and they love to bounce off it but they end up as ball of fire xD

There is no way to escape from "better weapons and shield" mechanics.

It suck that Pioneer don't put weapons randomly on AI instead they are leveled to players armament so Pioneed also failed in making game that combat would not be arm race but they did something even worst. AI that "lvl" with player armament xD

[jmf]

I completely agree with you in the point, that weapons are unusable and the police ship's AI is colliding with everything. This is known. And it has to change. This discussion should be continued, but I think that this is not the right place to do it. Not on github and especially not in an issue post that is not about weapons or general AI problems at all but about a specific AI problem. Please use pioneer dev forum to discuss things like that.

[fluffyfreak]

forum link for further discussion.

[corundscale]

@impaktor Ahem. General combat discussion aside, the original issue (exploitable AI behaviour when thrusting during approach) hasn't been fixed so could it be reopened?

[impaktor]

<impaktor> I'm not sure. Bug or lack of feature?
<impaktor> laarmen ^
<laarmen> I'd say it is a lack of feature                               [12:43]
<laarmen> A bug would be if the AI did something stupid without the player
          trying to make it do so.
<laarmen> better ask JohnJ next time he comes by.

and:

<JohnJ_> impaktor: It never used to be possible, because the ships turned too
         fast.                                                          [21:15]
<JohnJ_> I don't know whether the turn rate was reduced or pirates are just
         using less manuverable ships.
<JohnJ_> Either was it's almost certainly a feature shortage rather than a
         bug.

[corundscale]

@impaktor It doesn't depend on the turn rate.

The gist of it is that the AI, when hostile, tries to approach player and get into combat range. First it comes to a stop a fair distance from player, then it initiates the second phase of approach trying to keep closing velocity manageable (slow enough that complete stop is possible without colliding with or overshooting the target) while flying nose forward towards the player.

Now, if the player starts thrusting towards incoming AI ship, they can keep the closing rate above AI's "comfort zone", making the AI turn around and try to brake with its main thruster, then get away and re-approach.

If the AI can't compensate, the player is able to keep closing in while the AI keeps trying to accelerate away, failing to open fire or take any defensive actions against incoming player becoming easy pickings.

Turning rate is unimportant because it's the AI that actively turns away from the player, not the player outpacing AI's turning rate.

Basically if anything chases you you can chase it down instead and kill it without any resistance, as long as you can out-accelerate it.

I think something along the lines of opening suppressive fire at incoming player, then trying to dodge sideways to avoid collision would be desirable course of action if unable to compensate for the rate of approach.