[Reprobator]

Hi,
I'm currently working on a carrier integration and specifically around docking path, especially those for the fighter bay.
What I'm confronted to is that :
The fighter start inside the fighter bay (which is basically a sort of large tunnel).
what ever i do with the docking path do not change the problem : the fighters fly straight forward inside the tunnel and follow the path but 5/10 meters before the exit they just go crazy and fly around, hitting the tunnel and die stupidly.

I've try a path like this (simplified shot for explanation) (balls are path point)


then I've made point 1,2 and 3 away for the hangar it self:

but no improvement
I've then made them more far away :


and that change nothing, do someone had this kind of design (tunnel and ai to arrive from this hangar bay) ?
do you have some advice to resolve this?
i may start my docking path and set my docking point directly at the exit, but I'd prefer to find a solution to let them start at the point i wanted first.

Thank you in advance.

[zookeeper]

Docking paths are terrible and the AI doesn't follow them properly when undocking, so frankly I'd suggest simply dropping the idea until someone fixes the AI... I tried to add dockpoints for fighters for two FotG ships and spent a lot of hours trying to make the fighters undock and fly out the hangars correctly, but the issue always remained the same: the AI simply didn't follow the paths.

[Reprobator]

Yup, what is strange is that on another carrier who had a little hangar bay and a opened runway : they did follow correctly, but yeah i'll move those just at the exit of the tunnel nevermind.
That's terrible because if the ai would follow them correctly we could have a sort of autodocking system via sexp to work , and that would be great.
I've try that yesterday and the result was terrible : as soon as ai take the command, it send you straight on the docking target's hull

[Sushi]

As it so happens, I was working on this this morning! Diaspora has the same problem. The AI sucks at following paths, especially in high speed, high damp ships.

The good news is that I've found some ways to modify the AI so that this works a lot better, at least for the departure-path case. There are a couple of factors that cause the AI to be stupid in cases like this:

1. By default, the AI won't fly the whole path. They'll shortcut to the furthest point on the path that they can reach. That explains why moving the path points further away doesn't help much.

2. The AI gets really retarded if it misses a point, and starts turning at a really reduced rate. The reasons for this are a bit technical, but I've found the code that does this stupidity and figured out how to work around it.

3. The AI makes no effort to stay "on" a path, it just points towards the next point.

4. The AI does not compensate for ship momentum when following paths.

I am working on improvements that helps the AI follow paths a lot better, fixing the problems mentioned above. The code isn't very tested yet, so I'm not sure how it handles all situations: I've only tested it with departure paths so far, not waypoint paths, arrival paths, or docking/undocking paths. Stay tuned, though, help is on the way! If all goes well, I'll probably have a patch and test builds available as soon as the end of the week.

[Reprobator]

Sushi you're my hero!

That's a really good news, waypoint path actually are quite problematic with what i tested, high dampening and slow turning rate cap ship even when facing the waypoint tend to make a complete turn on itself and that's problematic , anyway that's another problem, fixing the docking path thing would be really excellent!

[headdie]

As it so happens, I was working on this this morning! Diaspora has the same problem. The AI sucks at following paths, especially in high speed, high damp ships.

The good news is that I've found some ways to modify the AI so that this works a lot better, at least for the departure-path case. There are a couple of factors that cause the AI to be stupid in cases like this:

1. By default, the AI won't fly the whole path. They'll shortcut to the furthest point on the path that they can reach. That explains why moving the path points further away doesn't help much.

2. The AI gets really retarded if it misses a point, and starts turning at a really reduced rate. The reasons for this are a bit technical, but I've found the code that does this stupidity and figured out how to work around it.

3. The AI makes no effort to stay "on" a path, it just points towards the next point.

4. The AI does not compensate for ship momentum when following paths.

I am working on improvements that helps the AI follow paths a lot better, fixing the problems mentioned above. The code isn't very tested yet, so I'm not sure how it handles all situations: I've only tested it with departure paths so far, not waypoint paths, arrival paths, or docking/undocking paths. Stay tuned, though, help is on the way! If all goes well, I'll probably have a patch and test builds available as soon as the end of the week.

awesome news, many thanks Sushi.

[Sushi]

Here are some prototype test builds:

http://www.mediafire.com/?airdp5ckaaiwo52

Be warned that I haven't tested this anywhere except Diaspora yet, so no guarantees. I am curious to see if it solves any of your problems, though, or just creates new ones.

[Reprobator]

Allright i'll try this as soon as i m back at work!

[Reprobator]

I tryed it out, the problem remain for me.

[Sushi]

Darn. Guess it's something else, then.

If you'd like to send me a test mission that demonstrates the problem, though, I'd be happy to look at it and try to determine exactly why it isn't working...

[Reprobator]

THe problem is that : it's not vanilla , it's for a tc.

[Reprobator]

After further test anyway it has fixed ai landing for me.

[Sushi]

After further test anyway it has fixed ai landing for me.

So it fixes problems you had with landings, but not with launches?

[Reprobator]

exactly !