Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Hyperlynx on September 18, 2013, 07:27:25 pm
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I've just got started with Freespace, currently playing FSPort in Freespace Open.
It seems that all dogfights devolve into everyone crashing into each other. Actually, even when ordering everyone to form on me, they crash into each other in the process. Like, to the point where Yakety Sax would not be out of place as ingame music. Is that normal?
I'm exaggerating a little about the dogfights, but the pilots really seem to have no spatial awareness. Also, it seems that speed and maneuverability is really not important, because dogfights inevitably end up as very low speed turning battles (with collisions thrown in). I mean it seems there's almost no point to flying, say, the Valkyrie because you're never going to use that extra speed.
Are there any AI mods that correct this?
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Some mods use enhanced AI (e.g. Vassago's Dirge, Wings of Dawn, Diaspora, BluePlanet:WiH) but both the retail campaign & the FSPort (ie. FS1) campaign have been left with the original :v: AI. In theory it should be possible to add enhanced AI to the original campaigns, one problem is that it would probably require a lot of rebalancing work.
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I don't know about rebalancing being necessary... so far the missions are pretty easy, mostly because of how bad the AI is
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It would definitely require a lot of rebalancing.
Dumb/Smart AI affects way more than just how dogfighting with the player goes. It affects how quickly capships and wingmen are killed. Which then affects when messages are sent (or aren't as the case would likely be). It affects mission timing but a huge margin. What if a capship is killed/disabled before the reinforcements that are triggered by mission-time arrive instead of them arriving beforehand? The list goes on.
Simply switching the AI can break a campaign from playing properly. I don't know if that would happen to the retail campaigns, but it's a pretty high risk.
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I'm exaggerating a little about the dogfights, but the pilots really seem to have no spatial awareness. Also, it seems that speed and maneuverability is really not important, because dogfights inevitably end up as very low speed turning battles (with collisions thrown in). I mean it seems there's almost no point to flying, say, the Valkyrie because you're never going to use that extra speed.
The retail FS AI being fairly brain-dead when it comes to avoiding collisions is a well-known fact, but the rest of this seems a bit strange to me. Enemy fighters should be using their afterburners when they start taking significant damage, and fighting something like a Scorpion or Dragon involves darting all over the place, so speed and maneuverability certainly have their place in choice of ships. Are you not seeing any behavior like that at all?
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What difficulty are you playing on?
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I'm exaggerating a little about the dogfights, but the pilots really seem to have no spatial awareness. Also, it seems that speed and maneuverability is really not important, because dogfights inevitably end up as very low speed turning battles (with collisions thrown in). I mean it seems there's almost no point to flying, say, the Valkyrie because you're never going to use that extra speed.
The retail FS AI being fairly brain-dead when it comes to avoiding collisions is a well-known fact, but the rest of this seems a bit strange to me. Enemy fighters should be using their afterburners when they start taking significant damage, and fighting something like a Scorpion or Dragon involves darting all over the place, so speed and maneuverability certainly have their place in choice of ships. Are you not seeing any behavior like that at all?
A little bit, but not really. It seems that whenever I do need speed in a fight, the afterburner more than suffices.
As for an AI upgrade breaking carefully choreographed mission timing, if it were a simple change to make then I'd be more than willing to try it out regardless. I get the impression that it's not as simple as adding on another mod, though, so it's a bit of a moot point.
What difficulty are you playing on?
Medium.
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I think updating AI is fairly simple.
Just a table file or two...
Of course it does come with the caveat that if anything breaks, well, you're going to have to uninstall the upgraded AI to get around it, or tweak the mission (or just live with it if it isn't too atrocious).
IIRC the AI is a bit more intelligent even in retail on insane difficulty, could give that a go as well.
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Part of the problem with turning battles could be how you are flying. I remember when I first played this game as a kid (when it first came out), I always got stuck in a 1v1 with the AI where I'd constantly be turning, and I would fly n circles for a minute or two unable to get the enemy in my gunsights. The culprit? Flying at full throttle all the time. When I came back to the game after discovering FSO, I learned that decelerating allows you to turn much faster to put a quick end to these sorts of battles.
Also, increasing game difficulty drastically makes the game harder, though some of it is artificial (realistic?) difficulty. Keep in mind that in any setting below insane, your fighter has plot armor and everyone else is nerfed. Enemies (and friendlies) shoot slower than their weapons' maximal fire rate, cannot turn at their ship's maximum turn speed, capital ships cannot shoot from more than 3 turrets at a time, and your fighter has craploads more shields/hull/energy. Turning up difficulty gradually removes these handicaps, with insane removing all restrictions on enemies and all benefits for yourself (realism mode). The downside is that insane enemies will almost never miss a non-accelerating target, since their shots always land on the lead indicator. This can actually an advantage, because you're nearly impossible to hit if you keep your own acceleration, whether it be from engine speed or turning, high at all times, though you tend to vaporize in 1-2 seconds if you mess up. This is where good maneuverability and top speed come in: in something that's slow, you'll never have the acceleration to dodge incoming shots, so you tank everything sent your way, which invariably ends up in a quick death. In something fast, you are invincible, assuming you have the skill to never fly into where your lead indicator points.
However, from what I've seen at insane, wingmen can still occasionally be retarded with collisions. The worst offender is still the c37, where you order people onto your wing. That collision behavior never goes away with higher difficulty. That being said, I've never witnessed any fighters colliding into each other during dogfights on insane difficulty, probably because everyone is more agile, and things die so much faster. A notable example is Lion at the Door, which is an exceedingly easy mission on insane because your wingmen will effortlessly kill everything in seconds if you micro them properly, so there isn't time for drawn out turning battles.
tl;dr: Increasing difficulty makes enemies and friendlies much more agile, able to shoot faster and better, and overall, a much bigger threat. However, it also increases artificial difficulty as AI resembles an aimbot at insane. Caveat: increasing difficulty and AI smartness doesn't improve their collision avoidance behavior. However, because they're more agile, they'll collide less in real game situations.
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Hyperlinx, try using match speed control when flying.
It's the easiest way to keep from flying up ship ass all the time. I don't recommend auto match speed. Only use match speed when you really need too, also handy for staying close and keeping up with what you're escorting.
And of course, a few things result when trying to get personal with another fighters knickers.
1. You get too busy with that one fighter trying to kill it that it keeps you away from mission objectives for an increased amount of time(i'm glad to hear that you have met mission objectives at least, the main point being with what i said, it's a distraction and increases wasted time).
2. It's not an efficient way to fly (with all of the wasted time turn flying, you could have helped your wingmates more and better protect other assets).
3. Enemy and friendly ships get the idea real fast that you're bubba.
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Using A/Z to accelerate/decelerate will allow you to turn tighter, and if you've got match speed engaged it will not disengage it (IIRC).