Better ship AI block

[Twinchicky]

My idea for this better AI system (I also made a brief post about this on the Google Moderation page, or whatever it's called) is to add a better AI block that allows the player to program in more advanced coordinated attack patterns, and/or make AI ships automatically dock and/or follow their mothership. Also, included within this block would be the ability to have a ship interface with its mothership so that the mothership can call it back to dock, or order it to attack a certain ship.

For this to work, a ship with this AI would have one specific docking module on its mothership set as its "home" - as soon as its goal is accomplished (i.e. it destroys the ship it was ordered to attack), it returns "home" and docks to this module.

Another feature of this is that, if the AI ship is attacking another ship, the ship it is attacking becomes the AI ship's "selected target" - so that AI-controlled turrets (set to "aim at=selected target") that are on the AI-controlled ship will fire upon the ship that the AI-controlled ship has been ordered to attack.

I know that last paragraph probably made no sense, so here it is put more simply:

Ship A = AI-controlled ship

Ship B = Target ship

Ship C = Mothership

Turret A = an AI turret on Ship A, set to "aim at = selected target"

1. Ship C tells Ship A to attack Ship B.

2. Ship A heads toward ship B.

3. When Turret A gets within range of Ship B, it fires at Ship B, not a stray pirate ship wandering around nearby.



One of the scripts for a specified attack pattern might look like this:

Attack Pattern Alpha

If messagerecievedfrommothership = Attack string("XShip") Alpha then SelectTarget = XShip

if DistanceToXShip ? 300m then FireAntimatterCannons = true

if DistanceToXShip ? 100m then FireSDBBMissile = true

//This attack pattern specifies a pattern of firing antimatter cannons from a long ways away to take down a ship's shields, then firing a missile from short range in order to cause some serious damage.



Now, I know that the scripting would likely take a TON of work to implement, so the better AI block could start out with features like being uplinked to a mothership, attacking a target specified by the mothership, and having the "Return Home" function. If this was implemented, it would allow for a player to deploy a squadron of fighters from Faction A's base to hold off Faction B's attack ship while Faction A takes their ship to go and attack Faction B's base. It would also allow for players to run patrol ships around their home sector, and prevent their ships from being destroyed while they were offline.

If AI ships were improved, it would add so much to the game - elements of strategy, the ability for one or two players to build up and control an entire fleet continuously. At this point, I've been getting a bit bored of flying around in one ship all the time

 

[Zaflis]

As far as current AI block goes, i tested bot ships first time today You know Bobby has toggle to set it behave as Ship or Turret. As ship it really did work similar to what pirates would do, after hostiles came somewhere near it. But his aim was way off and in the end i had to kill the pirates myself. After no targets remained, the bot was still shooting at... something/nothing. - So i agree the AI block could have improvements.

Scripting can also be replaced by triggers. Less features, but player would have a UI to program the bot, instead of writing code. Script handling at runtime should also be much slower in all cases. Whichever type people prefer, if any, i\'m ok with. Scripting/triggers is still not necessary to make basic fleet defences work.

 

[Twinchicky]

I agree with you, Zaflis. Yes, I do know about the toggle, and I do agree that some kind of a GUI would be more player-freindly than scripting like I described. Having the ability to have a few ships run patrol routes around an area of, say, a few sectors, then attack any enemies coming nearby, could be quite helpful. That can\'t be accomplished with the current (broken?) ship AI system.

My other idea is for AI blocks on stations to be able to give orders to AI-controlled ships and launch them at will. For example, a mothership sends a message back to its home station requesting backup. The home station then sends 5 AI-controlled fighters to converge on the mothership\'s position, and attack any enemies nearby.

 

[Twinchicky]

The other idea I had was this:

Be able to give AI ships an order to fly to a certain sector, then attack any ships that come into that sector, and stay there. This would be great for factions who want to control sectors other than their own!

 

[Yatem]

This is good.

 

[lman94]

to send ai ships to other sectors would be difficult because of how the game handles loading of sectors. similar to minecraft chunk loading, sectors away from a player are removed from active computer memory to improve performance.
so an ai in another sector would be frozen. since this also applies to pirates, this makes patrols unnecessary, though calling for backup still applies.

 

[Monsta]

Great Idea! some form of scripting for AI ships would be great, some ideas i had were:

Selective Targeting: A setting for AI turrets/ships that chooses what type of ship it will target, could be used to make turrets only target ships over/under a certain mass, only target turrets, or only shoot when attacked.

Accuracy Increased by Mass: We all know that AI ships have horrible accuracy, so maybe they should have some kind of block that increases the accuracy of a turret or a ship by having many of that block.

Different Purposes: Im sure im not the only one who finds it boring flying around doing boring jobs while i could be off fighting pirates. If there was a setting for AI modules that allowed a ship to fly around within s certain distance of a sector or ship, salvaging only a certain one or two block types, or use atrotechnobeams to repair a set ship, or only ships in a faction.

Make Dis-Integrators Useful: A fun thing i thought of when i was messing around with explosives, maybe have a way of un-docking a ship designed for suicide, while still in battle, and having that suicide ship fly towards and collide with another ship.

Transmissions: A setting that allows for a ship to go to a sector, wait there and send a transmission to certain players or people in a faction if a ship passes through the sector, and then either fly to a sector, find a player or ship, attack the ship or cloak and radarjam.

Docking: A way that AI ships can automatically undock when sent a message, attack nearby enemies or a certain ship, then return to an available docking bay on a ship or station when.

That was lots of typing for a touchscreen... Hope someone reads this ^^ :3