Fleet AI is atrocious.

[Lecic]

Seriously. The fleet AI is somehow even worse that the normal flavor of AI. It moves the wrong way when you give it orders, it has trouble changing orders, and mining just flat out does not work.

 

[jstenholt]

Come on now, you know as well as anybody what a work in progress it is.

 

[terra mining corp.]

the fleet mining is hit and miss on a day by day basis,one day they just derp around knocking each other and asteroids around,and other days will clean up the sector in no time,i'll have to try it out with the new update but the asteroids look incredible!

 

[Master_Artificer]

Yeah, I still remember when my big ship decided to aim at a pirate station 4 sectors away, out of range, and lay in wait for it.

While being dismantled by a ship literally 100 meters away blasting at the hull.


Also this is still a thing for the 'default' normal AI:

Oh that gif of a turret on a slowly spinning base aiming at a stationary target never gets old XD

 

[Lecic]

Come on now, you know as well as anybody what a work in progress it is.

Work in progress doesn't mean we shouldn't be pointing it out.

 

[Shaker]

I would guess they brought out a quick wip up of ai just to shut us up for a week.

Its part of the reason i asked bench if ai will be able to work without a player nearby. They need a guy on ai full time, as i would guess its going to be a big part of this game in the future

 

[nightrune]

This is one of my largest complaints so far.

 

[Sgtwisky]

Yeah, I still remember when my big ship decided to aim at a pirate station 4 sectors away, out of range, and lay in wait for it.

While being dismantled by a ship literally 100 meters away blasting at the hull.


Also this is still a thing for the 'default' normal AI:

Oh that gif of a turret on a slowly spinning base aiming at a stationary target never gets old XD

I know its likely just the .gif, but it makes it look like that turret is REALLY spazing out at high speed. It amuses me every time you post it.

 

[Master_Artificer]

I would guess they brought out a quick wip up of ai just to shut us up for a week.

Its part of the reason i asked bench if ai will be able to work without a player nearby. They need a guy on ai full time, as i would guess its going to be a big part of this game in the future

We also need more toggles than a on/off switch.
Example:
Agressive/passive
>does it pursue and chase or shoot but not chase.
LeroyJenkins/cowardly
>does it not care about survival or retreat back to shipyard when a set amount of armor or systems is destroyed.

I made a very comprehensive list a while ago, ill dig it up in a few days when i have free time

 

[Lukwan]

Drones that fail to find a path to the pick-up point when recalled should 'try again' instead of spinning in space.

New fleet-order requests:

1) Idle formation then immediately return to carrier. This would allow builders to precisely design the return path of their drones. Knowing the positions in formation enables you to plan the pick-up rail points and avoid collisions.

2) Guardian . Maintain formation around...and follow target ship. Will defend target but will not pursue attackers if they retreat.

3) Patrol between points. Two different sectors are assigned as a patrol route. Various engagement options (check-boxes).

4) Support. Flies behind target ship and uses support weapons on it. Shield transfer, power x-fer, Astro-Tech etc.

 

[Ithirahad]

the fleet mining is hit and miss on a day by day basis,one day they just derp around knocking each other and asteroids around,and other days will clean up the sector in no time,i'll have to try it out with the new update but the asteroids look incredible!

Seems to have broken completely since last update. Or something. Regardless, no, they will no longer "clean up a sector in no time" - they'll just mine one asteroid then completely stop working.

 

[jayman38]

Derpy AI? It's Schine's secret plot to train players to deal with actual human workers. :D "Coffee break!" "Smoke Break!"

 

[Comradecolonel]

One thing that especially bothers me about the fleets is their constant wandering. I tell them to defend the sector I'm in and they slowly drift away. Eventually they're 5 sectors away and can't defend shit. Better just to leave normal AI ships in the sector I'm in.

 

[Keptick]

Work in progress doesn't mean we shouldn't be pointing it out.

Oh don't worry, I brought it up to the devs on more occasions than I can count before resigning from the council (and look at how well that worked). My biggest suggestion was just being able to set engagement ranges for specific fleets or fleet ships, which would help A LOT.

But no, according to a certain someone fleets were implemented fine and weren't rushed into the game, so the complaints were swiftly brushed aside. The priority is now on other stuff, so my guess is that fleet AI won't get fixed any time soon (adding yet an other useless feature to the game).

 

[Ghent96]

AI probably needs proper bounding boxes in order to position ships correctly. Proper bounding boxes or collision boxes aren't calculated by the game engine... yet... as far as I can tell. I don't know the code, but it doesn't seem like it. When ships get near each other you can almost see the game steaming out it's ears trying to calculate all the collisions for each block nearby, even non-physical ones.

Yes, AI is atrocious. If Schine actually thinks that fleets are "fine" as is, then all hope could be lost. They need to get their heads out of their rears, and join a random, normal server in survival mode and play a few hours / days.

 

[Andir]

My only complaint related to this is that all the "features" that keep being added seem like this. It's like a push to tick off a bunch of boxes and nothing feels quite fleshed out.

AI, Shipyards, etc. Sooo close to being awesome things to play with but frustrating because they don't do what they should.

 

[Ithirahad]

...Granted, aside from weird naming issues, shipyards seem to work. But that was six months after they were implemented.

 

[Kingofanime]

Fleet AI is the number one most common thing that I create phab tickets for. And most of my bug tickets for fleets have been fixed, and I'm very happy for that. I can now use fleets in my creative test world to battle against my nephew, which I could not do during the first month that fleets came out. But, at the same time, I do not quite feel comfortable yet with using the fleet ai in a survival world. Hopefully, the trade guild assets being added into the game will see ai improvements.

One thing that especially bothers me about the fleets is their constant wandering. I tell them to defend the sector I'm in and they slowly drift away. Eventually they're 5 sectors away and can't defend shit. Better just to leave normal AI ships in the sector I'm in.

I currently have open bug reports for ships not using any kind of braking after a move command (they drift an additional sector until they stop). And one for defend sector fleets not moving back to their assigned sector after combat. So I'm hopeful that those eventually get fixed.

My biggest suggestion was just being able to set engagement ranges for specific fleets or fleet ships, which would help A LOT.

Speaking of engagement ranges... Sometimes I wish the enemy ship ai would occasionally try to fight me up close, instead of maintaining maximum weapons range all the time. Pirates should be less cautious and more reckless.

 

[nightrune]

The only way I could imagine it being fine, is if its a placeholder until future work is done. There are many times in development where I have implemented something just enough so that another system could use it, and so it doesn't stop development for others on the team. That's the only reason I could imagine it being fine. The rework could very well be waiting on crew before they completely refine the concept. Hopefully Schine will comment, but from the players standpoint right now, its almost useless cruft for anything else besides cool line up pictures.

 

[Madman198237]

Fleet AI is terrible. Surely there's a simple solution (Or deeply complex but ultimately extremely useful solution, such as if bounding boxes haven't yet been implemented. Implementing could take 3 weeks, but at the end there will be more uses for the new, functional feature) that will fix the random crap fleets do.
I imagine that the problem with fleets entering sectors and stopping in them is that they don't yet have any sort of pathing behavior (Maybe they could track potential bounding-box collisions along the present path of travel, correct in a basic way, check again. All you're doing is dodging rectangles in space, as far as the code needs be concerned) so they can't decide exactly where to stop.
Mining, well, can't they just work like the turrets????? Find target. Engage targets' concentrations of systems (In this case, concentrations of blocks). Reevaluate target. Target gone. Find new target.

Why, oh why, do they need to hit one asteroid and then get so utterly lost as to be useless?