Did you test that in single player?
In this case, the AI-Difficulty setting is used.
The server.cfg is only active in case of dedicated server startup.
- Andy
In single player, on Hard AI settings, and AI_WEAPON_AIMING_ACCURACY set to 10, AI can only hit a stationary target from 500 meters with a 50% chance. For testing purposes, a large hunk of shields and power (30x30x30) without thrusters to be unable to move and sustain fire for extended testing. The AI pirate I spawned, kept missing even that large (27K blocks) stationary target. You can guess the chances of hitting a moving, 800 blocks fighter. Or a core.
On dedicated multiplayer servers it's even worse since the difficulty settings do not factor in, only the line in the .cfg - I ran some tests, and to be able to hit a stationary core with 80% of shots within 1000 meters, you need to set the AI_WEAPON_AIMING_ACCURACY to 200 (!!!). And it will still miss a lot (or always) when trying to hit a moving (especially strafing) target with cannons, and will not hit even once when using beams, as the beam doesn't even come close to the target's actual position. Add in the crazy shield buffs of the new release and you'll realise the turrets will simply never be able to bring a ship down unless you use target chasing (Missile master, Beam slave) missile setups which have a good hit chance on larger targets. I wouldn't recommend swarmers as they cause immense amounts of friendly fire and they are just as dangerous to your own ships as to the enemy. They desperately need an IFF system (tertiary? Please?) to be viable for defensive purposes.
