Radar Jammed but shot at by pirate station turrets?

[GROOV3ST3R]

I'm kind of new to this whole idea of jamming - nevermind cloaking - but from what I gathered, jammed ships are not supposed to be shot at by turrets or any AI in the game. Yet when my jamer was green I was constantly being pummeled by those bloody pirates ^^



On a side note:

I'm experiencing a weird glitch which makes the server think that my ship hasn't got enough energy to stay Jammed even though it has. It even happens when I am stationary. I figure it's most likely due to lag so I had to redesign my ship to allow some room for when the bug happens to stop my ship from un-jamming but occasionally it still happens. (I have more than enough energy to remain permanently jammed while stationary AND while on the move as well as a ton of buffering energy in tanks so it's not a design flaw :S).

 

[Commodore]

It might be the cloak that keeps pirate turrets off you, not the radarjammer, i don\'t really remember though. I like to have a 1 second buffer (or more) when I make a stealth ship, although it still drops out at the worst possible times. Once I flew ~60 sectors cloaked+jammed, then I saw a big pirate ship with lots of turrets, then one of the stealths failed and I went immediately back to my spawn point

 

[Depriest]

Yeah, it\'s the cloak that stops NPCs from shooting at you, also the jammer turning off on its own is a bug or some such with the server lagging and not regenerating power enough to keep it running.

 

[AndyP]

Cloak only: No fire from ships (But sometimes, they follow you), no fire from turrets
Jam only: No fire from ships, turrets fire on you
Cloak and Jam: No fire at all.

So its partly working as intended.
Cloak should make them follow, but not fire.
Jam should make them fire, but with awful targeting.
Both should keep you really invisible.

- Andy

 

[Cirdanoth]

It used to be so that radar-jamming prevented turretfire. This seems to no longer be the case... Which sucks, as cloaking takes way more energy than radarjamming. This will further restrict the use of stealth-vessels, methinks, and keep the trend going of ugly-looking blobs of energy generators...

 

[GROOV3ST3R]

Turret AI needs some signature to lock onto. Without it it shouldn\'t even recognize there is a ship there. Pirates on the other hand are simulated non-playable characters i.e bots.They should be able to shoot your ship but with very low accuracy since they cannot locate it properly and don\'t know which way it\'s heading etc. Like a real warship with camo patterns which break up the lines of the vessel, confusing potential threats as to the direction in which it\'s heading, causing inaccurate predicitions and inaccuracies. I mean, the way it\'s now, the system is completely the other way round from what it logically should be :S



Also, when cloaked, pirates should follow you less accurately or with more caution as they detect you on the radar, while turrets simply pummel you to kingdom come as they detect your signature and that is all they need.



I brought this up because I have just made a stealth ship for my faction. It looks great and produces enough energy to jam but not cloak. This kind of makes it a pointless 7000 block gadget :S since it can\'t get close to enemy emplacements due to turrets still shooting at it.

 

[AndyP]

radar signature should make you completely invisible to enemy computers, while every \'camera\' can see your movement.


Seeing from human side:
You see an enemy, but your target systems tell you: there is no enemy.
What would you do?
Aim manual and fire.

Other case, cloaked but not jammed:
Ai cannot see you, but instruments state: there is an enemy.
You would be extremely alarmed, and try to keep the unknown signature in front of your ship.
But you wont fire and waste energy or ammo without knowing where to fire exactly.

Is this THAT \'wrong\'?

- Andy

 

[GROOV3ST3R]

The case example you presented fits pretty accurately with what would happen in reality.



Each ship has a signature. That signature is the most accurate way for turrets to pick you up. They do not distinguish (yet) between the size of the ship. Visual targeting of any kind is very vague and inefficient since it takes a looong time to proces visual inputs and determine what the shapes mean. All you need to do to confuse the system is to make a brand new ship or change backgrounds. Lack of a signature should therefore completely disable turrets or at least reduce the accuracy to less than 10%. In a dark environment, you would and should be practically untraceable for turrets.

Humans however have literally evolved to detect movement, even in the dark, and we are able to very quickly determine what a ship is and where it is. So after assesing the threat level, we will give it a pounding but our turrets are useless since they cannot take aim.



With a cloak, you stil lgenerate that signature so turrets pick it up and shoot with maximum accuracy. They do not need visual confirmation. But now it gets tricky: It\'s not just that you don\'t know where to shoot, anywhere around the signature will yield results. But you don\'t know what you are dealing with. You might meet a small scout with no armor or shields. But it might also turn out to be a Corvette with it\'s guns pointing at your fighter. I mean, I could probably build something like that if I really tried. Or it might be a core with a bunch of generators strapped to it, making a credit run. You just don\'t know. So you can hold back and follow it untill it eventually resurfaces or loses cloak in one way or another.

Turrets don\'t and should not have that same moral dilemma. They will just shoot it because it\'s there and it\'s an enemy. That is all they need to know.



To make the system more realistic, all we need is for turrets to target cloaked ships with no radar jam and to ignore any jammed ship. Pirates should shoot you accurately if you are visible or with a lot less accuracy/not at all if you are invisible.



I think this makes sense ^^

 

[CyberTao]

Its seems to me you saying Jammers should disable turrets merely cause they are computers.

However, in the future they are to be manned with a NPC, so they would no longer me \"AI\", but \"Manned\"

In which case your arguement becomes invalid?

 

[GROOV3ST3R]

Man everything, it\'s the temporary solution to a loophole in the game mechanic... If that happens, then Jammers functionality must be included in the cloak at no extra energy cost because it will make 0 sense to just make a jamming ship. It will be simply useless and jamming alone will become obsolete.



As it is NOW, they are still unmanned and they are behaving like they shouldn\'t for unmanned turrets.

 

[AndyP]

Okay, for now this goes over to feature request. =)
I understand both sides on \'fire when sensors say its an enemy\' or \'fire wenn spotting and recognizing\'

Maybe it should do like it is now, you need a visible confirmation of enemy ships. (Maybe a safety protocol for diplomacy or anything else.)
No idea, but its at least a predictable behaviour, so no bug at all. :P

- Andy

 

[DranKof]

Does this sound like a fair summary of what people think the ideal next step of the implementation of these features should be like?



When it\'s \"visual sensors\" (NPC pilot/turret):

Jamming - no big effect

Stealth - accuracy vastly decreased

Both - totally invisible



When it\'s \"computer scanners\" (AI pilot/turret):

Jamming - accuracy vastly decreased

Stealth - no big effect

Both - totally invisible



Or do people morely share the opinion that NPC\'s/AI should not shoot at all at cloaked ships?

IMO, I wouldn\'t worry about the size of a cloaked ship. Enemy cloaked ship outside my faction base? Shoot. Not nearby my faction base or anything important? Too hard to script for NPCs, and I think I would shoot, too, anyway!

 

[GROOV3ST3R]

When turrets become manned by NPC\'s, they should have additional parameters put on them such as View range and field of view. If your ship is jammed and far away or behind/outside the field of vision of the NPC pilot, the turret should not \'\'see\'\' your ship and thus not react to it.

When you reappear on the radar or fly into the FOV of the turret, it should start shooting at you, becoming less accurate the further away you are and the faster you are moving.