As we all know, the Bobby AI is fairly good at what it can do, but its fairly limited ( and slightly buggy but alpha is alpha) what i'm about to suggest is an improvement to the Bobby Ai block, not a new block but just a change to the current one.
New abilities for Ship AI (explanations will be below)
These are all for the SHIP AI mode, so if turret is selected these do not appear or do not function.
Follow mode is fairly straightforward, it like most other options would be a check box, but when clicked it opens up a scrollable box similar to the navigation panel but it only displays ships in the same sector, you would use this to designate a ship that the AI should follow at all costs. This also plays into...
Escort mode, which is just a check box that appears when follow mode is selected, if you also check off escort then the AI will do everything it can to protect what it's following, or destroy it if its an enemy faction. including ( if its possible for it to do this) physically sit in the way of projectiles if the protectee's shields drop below a certain point.
Home, is a selectable box that appears if follow mode is off, this allows you to set an Ai's home, such as a ship, station, planet, asteroid, sector, or even a shop, from a scrollable box that lists all objects in that sector. An AI will do everything in it's power to protect it's home and if it ever gets drawn away, like by combat or being pushed, it will do everything it can to get BACK to its home, no matter how far away it is.
Patrol, when checked brings up 2 boxes and an Add button, the two boxes are for typing in the coordinates of a sector, such as 2,2,2 and 3,2,2 this when activated will cause the AI to patrol back and forth between those two sectors regardless of their distance to each other. The Add button adds a third coordinate box to the list, and can be used to make patrol routes even more complex, up to 5 coordinates can be entered for patrols. (5 is just a random number, could be anything)
New settings for Turret AI
Fire if fired upon, would make a turret passive until either it, the mothership ( or station) or another turret is fired upon, at this point all turrets set to this mode will attempt to destroy whatever is attacking it, with whatever weapon they've been given ( this plays into something i'll get to in a bit)
Target Allied, allows the construction of support turrets such as power supply beam turrets, or even repair turrets, this could be used to great effect for large carriers that rely on fleets of fighters and frigates to do their work ( with the addition of the escort mode from earlier of course) because i mean when was the last time ANYONE used the power supply beam? i've never seen one installed on anything.
Target Neutral, Do i really need to explain this one? for the people who believe war is black and white, there are only good and evil, no neutral. Also pirates.
Target Asteroids, this could be used to make mining turrets because always aiming at your mouse is slightly annoying. And with these just cruising by an asteroid could net you some valuable stuff.
Finally i come to the section of things that im sure everyone can agree need to be fixed, and these will probably be fixed regardless of what i say here.
Smarter AI for weapon loadouts, because as the AI is now, they can only use AMC arrays and that limits them quite severely, an AI should be able to detect what kind of weapons it has and how to use them, for example if you build a battering ram ship with dis-integrators on it, it should figure out how to use that is by ramming the enemy. This also plays into things like Smart mines, that home in on enemies when they get close, if an ai finds that it has a cloaker, and a radar jammer, it should try and use them, and if it has the power to sustain it indefinitely it should. Also if we put missiles onto a ship the AI just doesn't understand how to use them, same thing with the various beams.
New abilities for Ship AI (explanations will be below)
- Follow mode
- Escort
- Home
- Patrol
These are all for the SHIP AI mode, so if turret is selected these do not appear or do not function.
Follow mode is fairly straightforward, it like most other options would be a check box, but when clicked it opens up a scrollable box similar to the navigation panel but it only displays ships in the same sector, you would use this to designate a ship that the AI should follow at all costs. This also plays into...
Escort mode, which is just a check box that appears when follow mode is selected, if you also check off escort then the AI will do everything it can to protect what it's following, or destroy it if its an enemy faction. including ( if its possible for it to do this) physically sit in the way of projectiles if the protectee's shields drop below a certain point.
Home, is a selectable box that appears if follow mode is off, this allows you to set an Ai's home, such as a ship, station, planet, asteroid, sector, or even a shop, from a scrollable box that lists all objects in that sector. An AI will do everything in it's power to protect it's home and if it ever gets drawn away, like by combat or being pushed, it will do everything it can to get BACK to its home, no matter how far away it is.
Patrol, when checked brings up 2 boxes and an Add button, the two boxes are for typing in the coordinates of a sector, such as 2,2,2 and 3,2,2 this when activated will cause the AI to patrol back and forth between those two sectors regardless of their distance to each other. The Add button adds a third coordinate box to the list, and can be used to make patrol routes even more complex, up to 5 coordinates can be entered for patrols. (5 is just a random number, could be anything)
New settings for Turret AI
- Fire if fired upon
- Target Allied
- Target Neutral
- Target asteroids ( possibly planets as well)
Fire if fired upon, would make a turret passive until either it, the mothership ( or station) or another turret is fired upon, at this point all turrets set to this mode will attempt to destroy whatever is attacking it, with whatever weapon they've been given ( this plays into something i'll get to in a bit)
Target Allied, allows the construction of support turrets such as power supply beam turrets, or even repair turrets, this could be used to great effect for large carriers that rely on fleets of fighters and frigates to do their work ( with the addition of the escort mode from earlier of course) because i mean when was the last time ANYONE used the power supply beam? i've never seen one installed on anything.
Target Neutral, Do i really need to explain this one? for the people who believe war is black and white, there are only good and evil, no neutral. Also pirates.
Target Asteroids, this could be used to make mining turrets because always aiming at your mouse is slightly annoying. And with these just cruising by an asteroid could net you some valuable stuff.
Finally i come to the section of things that im sure everyone can agree need to be fixed, and these will probably be fixed regardless of what i say here.
Smarter AI for weapon loadouts, because as the AI is now, they can only use AMC arrays and that limits them quite severely, an AI should be able to detect what kind of weapons it has and how to use them, for example if you build a battering ram ship with dis-integrators on it, it should figure out how to use that is by ramming the enemy. This also plays into things like Smart mines, that home in on enemies when they get close, if an ai finds that it has a cloaker, and a radar jammer, it should try and use them, and if it has the power to sustain it indefinitely it should. Also if we put missiles onto a ship the AI just doesn't understand how to use them, same thing with the various beams.
