Ba-Blamo!
So, to start off, holding ctrl brings up the "Advanced
Build Control Mode"
Here you can set the "orbital" of ships in relation to the Flagship/Flight Leader that the ship is 'linked' to.
You can set custom formations and holding patterns this way, and the A^3 bar is the AREA that the AI for the ship will attempt to stay bounded in. Graphics will look exactly like the old docking system for displaying the area that the ship is constrained to.
They are like Electron Orbitals in a way, as in you know that the ship is in that area. And they cannot overlap with another constraining orbital of a ship in the formation (box turns red and the "apply"/"save" button is greyed out).
You have the Main AI behavior next, where you can set between different settings:
This is the easiest to change and could vary from engagement to engagement.
- Aggressive: The ship will attempt to get within 25-100m of the target's longest axis (aka if the target is 35x 12y 40x then the AI will pick the biggest number and attempt to circle the target staying 40m+(25 to 100m) away.) regardless of the weapon choice equipped. It will attempt to orbit the target at its fastest speed possible and pick an axis not currently occupied by another. Problem: If you send too many drones to a target set on aggressive mode they might end up "queing" for an open slot to orbit the enemy ship at. They will also attempt to stay away from the front of the ship and prefer shooting at the sides and rear, regardless if you have weapons in the front or not.
- Standard Attack: The ship will move to within just under maximum range of its shortest ranged weapon equipped. This includes turrets. It will then try to position itself so it is not sitting in the front arc of the target.
- Cautious Attack: The ship will move to within just under maximum range of its longest range weapon equipped. This includes turrets. It will then try to position itself so it is not sitting in the front arc of the target.
- Standoff: The ship will attempt to move and sit just outside of the target's maximum weapon range. This includeds the enemies turrets. If missile beam is equipped on the target then the AI will default to "Cautious".
- Escort: The ship will stick close to its parent ship and fire upon anything that is targeting the parent ship. If this ship has point defense guns, they will target any lockons tracking the parent ship before targeting lockons tracking themselves.
NOTE: I forgot to include these next options on the picture, they would be found listed under "behavior" and would just push the buttons downward. The rest of these are more permanent settings that apply to the craft and turrets at a baseline level on how they are intended to function, and are saved on the blueprint.
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Now you have self preservation, this determines when the AI should start fleeing back to the sector that is the fleets "home". By default this is the sector that the fleet was created in. This applies to only the main entity, cannot be chosen for docked entities. (turrets cannot retreat lol)
- I am Coward: Will attempt to disengage when the shields reach 35% (10% above the shield sharing limit currently) to prevent damage to docked entities.
- I like Shields: Will attempt to disengage when the shield is down and it takes over 10% armor or structure damage.
- I like Armor: Will attempt to disengage when the armor bar is down or it takes over 20% structure damage.
- I like Systems: Will attempt to disengage when it has 60-65% structure bar left.
- I am Expendable: Will not disengage. Has a chance to start a reboot cycle upon death.
Next you have the Targeting Behavior. This is set for both the main ship and can be set for individual turrets as well.
Any indented bullets are choices that appear under that they have the option to pick to modify the behavior further.
- Any: Shoots hostile stations, astronauts, ships, and if their is nothing else and they have cannons, they might just shoot missiles if any are around.
- I Fire at Selected: Shoots at the thing you currently have selected.
- I Fire Socially: Fires at what the nearest friendly entity is firing at. Note, this means that somewhere, someone needs to have something else other than "I Fire Socially".
- I hate Astronauts: Will fire at hostile astronauts.
- I hate Stations: Will fire at hostile stations.
- I hate Missiles: Hates all Missiles.
- Selfish: Targets lockons that are tracking it before any others
- Selfless: Targets lockons that are tracking the friendly that has the most damage before any others
- Close: Targets the closest missile until the distance between itself and the missile starts increasing.
- Lockon: Targets lockons before dumb fired missiles and swarmers.
- Dumb: Targets dumbfired missiles before lockons and swarmers.
- Swarm: Targets swarmers before lockons and dumb fired.
- I hate Small: Will fire at the least massive non-docked entity in range.
- Turrets: Will fire on all docked entities of the smallest ship in range before the main ship itself.
- Drones: Will fire on the smallest entities that have undocked from hostile ships
- Shields: Will fire until their are no shields left, then switch to the next smallest target. Will not switch until shields are down.
- Armor: Will fire at the smallest target that has the lowest amount of shields until the armor bar is depleted.
- Systems: Will fire at the smallest target that has the lowest amount of shields and armor bar remaining.
- I hate Large: Will fire at the most massive non-docked entity in range.
- Turrets: Will fire on all docked entities of the largest ship in range before the main ship itself.
- Drones: Will fire on the largest entities that have undocked from hostile ships
- Shields: Will fire until their are no shields left, then switch to the next largest target. Will not switch until shields are down.
- Armor: Will fire at the largest target that has the lowest amount of shields until the armor bar is depleted.
- Systems: Will fire at the largest target that has the lowest amount of shields and armor bar remaining.
- I hate Far: Will fire at the farthest hostile entity in range.
- I hate Close: Will fire at the closest hostile entity in range.
Okay. Then after that you can see what passive effects have been detected on the ship as hexagons, and you can click the hexagons to toggle if you want them on or not. They will change from a dull green to a brighter green when toggled on.
Then below that is the turret AI settings (which now will need to be expanded to include the AI targeting options listed above). Click the button to "switch" between turret selections, the selected turret will continuously pulse white like how ships do when you enter build mode for the first few seconds. (allowing you to visually confirm that you have the turret you want).
Below that is buttons like save, load, etc etc, and apply. You can save selections so you can change a lot of ships at once without needing to do a lot of clicking if you saved a template for that ship AI.
Next is the health bar. Normally would display health of astronaut, but in fleet view, it represents the total amount of shields, armor, and (50% of) systems, remaining summed. Simple, if sometimes inaccurate, representation of your current fleet health.
Then we have the slots, where 66x66 pixel images taken from the blueprint folder of the ship if available (like the 96x96 image in the CC page). In the upper right corner their is a F for Flagship, or L for Flight Leader.
In the bottom right their is room for an alert notification, [!] if under fire, [eye] if it detects an enemy, and [evade] if it is fleeing. More are welcome.
In the bottom left their are health stats, and in the top left you can see what task the AI is preforming.
If the ship is a flagship or a flight leader, you can drag and drop ships into its group, which is displayed like you see above. Their behavior is overridden to the behavior of their parent ship for as long as the parent ship is alive, and you can set the formation like talked about before.
AI tasks would be like: rushing (moving closer), following, scanning (using any on board scanner when it is done cooling down), evading, fleeing, and hunting (looking for targets) and would be their to give you a general sense of what the AI was doing/thinking about at the time.
