turretAI

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JonathanD
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turretAI

Post by JonathanD »

is there ANY way I can adjust the turret AI to not shoot unless the turret is pointed at least in the general direction of it's target?

On the galaxy, it's only mildly annoying, but yesterday I took a bounty mission against a kamek with 4 wingmen :DDD and well, I didn't have to kill them. I just had to stay close enough that the turrets fired, and they wittled themselves away with just a bit of help from my own guns :p

If theres a way I can change it... would be awesome ;)
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Post by snow_Cat »

But then how'd we reenact that classic scene from The Sympsons, where Grandpaw shoots the tail off of the bi-plane (albeit taken from Indiana-Jones (albeit ...)) :)
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Post by JonathanD »

snow_cat, that would be a good point, if we had a biplane model ingame....
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Post by snow_Cat »

Ah those enterprising loons, launching whatever can mount a gun since they discovered guns... (JK)
Nur-Ab-Sal
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Re: turretAI

Post by Nur-Ab-Sal »

JonathanD wrote:is there ANY way I can adjust the turret AI to not shoot unless the turret is pointed at least in the general direction of it's target?
Especially the turrets should not shoot if there is a danger to hit friendly ships. They already have shot down a militia ship, because it was between the enemy and my turret.

Then you always have to silence the witnesses...

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JonathanD
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Post by JonathanD »

A good point, and more or less why the kilrathi blew themselves to bits. It's a combination of them being behind each other and trying to shoot through each other, and them shooting even if they are 180 degrees off from the target :p

The answer, in my mind, is to require a clear line of sight and line of fire to the target before allowing a turret to fire. There should be NO friendlys within say, 5 degrees of the current orientation as well, or don't fire.

I think this is important enough that I'd be willing to hack at it, if it's in python. if not, I might STILL be willing to hack at it but after reading some of chucks posts about the condition of the code... well... not sure I even want to look.
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Post by Duke Derek »

i sort of agree with the minimizing of friendly fire with turrets, if anyone's faced 2 or more capships they'll know what i mean.

it actually gets easier the more there are (best off in a Demon or a Stiletto for this one) because you can just fly inbetween them and the stray turret fire just shoots the other ships...
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Post by snow_Cat »

Don't make that 5˚ hard and fast; it may be realistic that as gunners become more excited to get a kill; or desperate not to die that such lapses in judgement may happen;

I think that Cave (2D, late 90's, Apple II?) used a fot/fov formula that dictated that gunners would attack their target based on how much of their sky it filled; this would mean that AI gunners would fire at a capship even if 'friendly' fighters were caught inbetween, if the capship were large (or near) enough to out weigh the risk/certainty of destroying a 'friendly'; and also that this balance could be shifted simulating psycosis (coward/bezerker);

This (other) approach could introduce a more dynamic (unstable) element in dogfighting.
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Post by hellcatv »

with the new collision system it shouldn't be too hard to check for things "in between"
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Post by ijuin »

Alt-W tells the turret AI to shoot anything that it can get in its crosshairs that's within range of your guns. However, you might want to use Ctrl-T, which tells the turret AI to shoot only at the target that is currently selected by your radar. This means that the turrets will not be shooting ships that come up on your tail, though, but it does mean that the turret fire will get focused upon your current target, letting you kill it faster.
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JonathanD
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Post by JonathanD »

Snow_cat, thats brilliant :)

Adds a very strong feeling of realism to your turrets.

Perhaps as a turret equipped ship becomes more heavily damaged, the turrets should become more aggressive.
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Post by snow_Cat »

but also, the closer the targets (you) are to destruction, the more excited and wreckless less disciplined gunners become.
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Post by JonathanD »

thats more or less what I meant.

Ship A is turret equipped and under fire.
Ship B is firing.

As ship A takes more damage, the turrets on ship A become less caring about friendly fire and more concerned with blowing up ship B before ship A is a pile of floating rubble.

Or something.
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Post by Nur-Ab-Sal »

snow_Cat wrote:Don't make that 5˚ hard and fast; it may be realistic that as gunners become more excited to get a kill; or desperate not to die that such lapses in judgement may happen;
The question is now: Are the turrets controled by human gunners or by a computer?
In the latter case there should be no "excitement difference". In the former case the game should be expanded with some RPG features. You get a list of gunners with certain characters and abilities and have to chose. Some don't want to be part of pirate missions, other only want to make fast money. As longer a gunner stays with you as better will be his abilities, etc.

But for now I'm assuming my turrets are controled by computer.

Shade and sweet water!

Stephan
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Post by snow_Cat »

I also mean that the closer ship A is to total destruction, the more excited the gunners of B will become.


All turret master systems may not necessairly have the same 'safe spot' setting, and may also only check at interval wether or not a friendly ship may be hit as a result of firing.
This could lead to situations where a small friendly craft has entered the area of fire between checks and is damaged; or where a small enemy craft has moved the area of fire to envelop friendly craft.
(though the later suggests a squadron-to-squadron strategy AI...)


'Dead stoping' (preventing ship-to-self) damage is pratical however, and should be implemented, to avoid situations where capships cap themselves.
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