[Unknown Target]

FS AI = Too st00ped to cheat

[Shrike]

Originally posted by mikhael
I never played either Privateer game, but no where in WC1 thru 3 and Prophecy did I see the strange, almost gravitational attraction that capships have for fighters the way even corvettes in Freespace do.

You also have to remember that most capital ships in FS are much bigger than the ones in WC, and I don't think are nearly as common in WC either.

[mikhael]

Originally posted by Shrike
You also have to remember that most capital ships in FS are much bigger than the ones in WC, and I don't think are nearly as common in WC either.

Agreed on both counts. Bigger means they should be easier to see and avoid, yes?

I think Prophecy was the first space sim I played that had so much activity around capships, followed by Freespace2, then Freespace1.  Prophecy didn't have the problem though... or maybe it did. I seem to recall Prophecy furballs being really really intense for some reason. Maybe I should reinstall that and see how it feels now, so many years later...

[Woolie Wool]

The AI sucks. I can't believe how easy it is to shake a pursuing Ai fighter. They have to see you directly to track you, so I just swerve out of the enemy's field of view and I lose him (the Shivans don't have the sophisticated GTVA HUDs with the little red triangles indicating which direction your target went and a radar). And then I end up right on his ass and ram Kayser blasts and Tempests up his thruster nozzles.

As for your wingmen, I find them quite useful. They draw the enemies' fire quite well. While the Shivans are busy shooting at my wingmen, I can pick the overgrown bugs off at my leisure.

[Woolie Wool]

Originally posted by Shrike
You also have to remember that most capital ships in FS are much bigger than the ones in WC, and I don't think are nearly as common in WC either.

For example, the largest ship in WC1, the Tiger's Claw, was the size of a Sobek and had only eight turrets.

[TopAce]

I am always against the Ai, I think it is even more important than graphics or sound effects, it makes the game more enjoyable if you feel you are working for a team, with no IQ -5 wingman.
Making good graphics slowen the game's FPS(Framerate) and that only requires better machine speed. During a dogfight, a pernamently good speed is the way of survival.

As Tar-Palantir told before, the Ai in XWA is cheating anotherhow than in FS2. Lucasarts' heart of making a game difficult was always the method of disabling certain things for the Ai. For example if you are hit, all your systems are immediatly disabled, despite you were hit by standard laser. The Ai's systems go down only when they reach 0%(using ion cannons) if they have 1% system strength, all their systems are operational. N engine wash for them, tractor beams have no effect on them etc.

FS2 Ai is good to decoy the enemy's attention, so if we are at 8 to 4 rate for the enemy, not all 8 are attacking me, only two or three. It's true that by the end of the dogfight, all my wingmen will have been eliminated, but at least I could survive and that is the most important.

[TopAce]

I have made a mission, in which there are eight suns with the scale of 16(extremely large) and I had to realize what I suspected... the Ai is not interrupted by the 'white flashing effect' which occurs while you are flying towards a sun. They could shoot at me without any accuracy decrease. But at least I could find one 'positive' thing in the Ai(which should have been a minimal always), that if I give only one Rockeye to a ship, it has no unlimited number of shoots. Next, I am gonna to test if they have limited laser energy etc. Tricking with TBL.

I always like to use the editors to 'examine' the Ai, and discover its cheating tricks. I am the master of that.

[Woolie Wool]

Originally posted by TopAce
FS2 Ai is good to decoy the enemy's attention, so if we are at 8 to 4 rate for the enemy, not all 8 are attacking me, only two or three. It's true that by the end of the dogfight, all my wingmen will have been eliminated, but at least I could survive and that is the most important.

I've made a mission for the FSPort mod for FS2 where you and your buddies pilot Apollos. I armed myself with dual Prometheus S, a bank of Harpoons, and a bank of Interceptors and gave my wingmen Disruptors with no secondaries. (you can choose between Subachs, ML-16s, Disruptors, Prometheus R, and Prometheus S as your primaries and between MX-50s, Rockeyes, Furies, Tempests, Harpoons, Interceptors, Hornets, Phoenix Vs, and Trebuchets as your secondaries in the weapon loadout screen. Default armament is a Subach and a Prometheus R with two banks of Rockeyes). The first opponents were a wing of six Anubises with Avengers and MX-50s (Cancer). My wingmen drew the Anubises' fire while I blew the Zods up one by one but the friendlies took minimal damage (Anubises SUCK:D ). Then two wings of four Serapis fighters each, all of them armed with Kaysers and Harpoons and a wing of three Myrmidons with Subach, Prometheus R, and Hornets, and an Anuket gas miner at 25% hull integrity warped in and my wingmen survived the first wave of them but were destroyed by the second. One of the Serapis wings (Aries) was not set to respawn and so is gone after the first wave of new arrivals is eliminated. The other two wings respawn four times. I eventually blew up all the Zods and Zod sympathizers and returned to base with around 10% of my hull left.

[TrashMan]

We allready knew the player can defeat half an armada!:doubt:

[Nico]

I just have to say that I agree with Mike on that. not being able to avoid a capship is... damn! that's space, you're in a 60*60km playground! you have a few capships in a huge void! and they can't avoid them.
I wonder what's from Descent in FS2 if you ask me. not the AI, that's for sure.

[Tiara]

Originally posted by Venom
I just have to say that I agree with Mike on that. not being able to avoid a capship is... damn! that's space, you're in a 60*60km playground! you have a few capships in a huge void! and they can't avoid them.
I wonder what's from Descent in FS2 if you ask me. not the AI, that's for sure.

They are usually stationed at key positions (nodes, planets etc) And since those are prime targets for any super power or rebel faction or whatever, you'll have a hard time avoiding them.

Unless ofcourse you wish to wonder into the dark cold space of nothingness and worthlessness...

[Tiara]

Originally posted by TrashMan
We allready knew the player can defeat half an armada!:doubt:

Once my mission is out... set difficulty to max, play it and say that again :drevil:

[Nico]

Originally posted by Tiara


They are usually stationed at key positions (nodes, planets etc) And since those are prime targets for any super power or rebel faction or whatever, you'll have a hard time avoiding them.

Unless ofcourse you wish to wonder into the dark cold space of nothingness and worthlessness...

what? I'm talking technics here, not fluff.

[TrashMan]

Originally posted by Tiara

Once my mission is out... set difficulty to max, play it and say that again :drevil:

You're talking to a triple ace!
Bring em on!:mad2:

[Tiara]

Originally posted by TrashMan


You're talking to a triple ace!
Bring em on!:mad2:

I will, don't worry

[TopAce]

Originally posted by TrashMan


You're talking to a triple ace!
Bring em on!:mad2:

I think all of us around here are TRIPLE Ace
But there is only one TOP Ace and one  simple ACE

[TrashMan]

UPS - wromg thread..DELETE THIS POST!

[TopAce]

Well, it looks as 'No' won, but may I suggest those who voted 'no' to try the following things:

1. Collide enemy fighters as often as possbile, and see who damaged more.
2. Hurt enemy fighters down seriously and run through its subsystem strengths. You will note it has all subsystems operational. While you know when you are hit, it is certain one of your subsystems will have been gone. This is the weapons system nine times from ten chances.
3. Give a slow locking warhead to the Ai, like Hornets and note how much time did the Ai take to target your ship and how quickly you were maneuvering.
4. Watch the hull! Your hull suffers damage regardless of your shields strength, and this is only rarely occurs at the Ai.
5. Stay close to an exploding ship with an Ai who is flying at the same distance from the exploding ship and the ship has the same strength. Note who damaged more.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by TopAce
2. Hurt enemy fighters down seriously and run through its subsystem strengths. You will note it has all subsystems operational. While you know when you are hit, it is certain one of your subsystems will have been gone. This is the weapons system nine times from ten chances

Most of the time when I get killed my subsystems are all still intact or only very lightly damaged. Subsystems are actually very small on a fighter. You'll only hit them if you actually try.

I found while playing R1 of TBP that about 1/3 to 1/2 of my Nial kills were from ships that had been disabled first which pretty much proves that the game isn't cheating, enemy subsystems do get damaged if they are easily hit.

When your subsystems get damaged you notice it quickly and you don't think about the thousends of times you got shot and didn't get disabled or end up weaponless.

Lastly an enemy fighter whose weapon or engine subsystem is destroyed will self destruct after 30-60 seconds. That doesn't happen to your wingmen so there appears to be plenty of cheating on both sides

[phreak]

actually the ai does cheat.  the last two functions in aicode.cpp show that it is

Code: [Select]


// Actually go ahead and fire the synaptics.
void cheat_fire_synaptic(object *objp, ship *shipp, ai_info *aip)
{
ship_weapon *swp;
swp = &shipp->weapons;
int current_bank = swp->current_secondary_bank;

ai_select_secondary_weapon(objp, swp, WIF_SPAWN, 0);
if (timestamp_elapsed(swp->next_secondary_fire_stamp[current_bank])) {
if (ship_fire_secondary(objp)) {
nprintf(("AI", "ship %s cheat fired synaptic!\n", shipp->ship_name));
swp->next_secondary_fire_stamp[current_bank] = timestamp(2500);
}
}
}

// For the subspace mission (sm3-09a)
// for delta wing
// if they're sufficiently far into the mission
// if they're near one or more enemies
// every so often
// fire a synaptic if they have one.
void maybe_cheat_fire_synaptic(object *objp, ai_info *aip)
{
// Only do in subspace missions.
if ( The_mission.flags & MISSION_FLAG_SUBSPACE ) {
ship *shipp;
int num, time;

shipp = &Ships[objp->instance];

if (!(strnicmp(shipp->ship_name, NOX("delta"), 5))) {
num = shipp->ship_name[6] - '1';

if ((num >= 0) && (num <= 3)) {
time = Missiontime >> 16; // Convert to seconds.

time -= 2*60; // Subtract off two minutes.

if (time > 0) {
int modulus = 17 + num*3;

if ((time % modulus) < 2) {
int count = num_nearby_fighters(get_enemy_team_mask(OBJ_INDEX(objp)), &objp->pos, 1500.0f);

if (count > 0) {
cheat_fire_synaptic(objp, shipp, aip);
}
}
}
}
}
}

}