Turret AI Volley Fire

    Joined
    Dec 5, 2015
    Messages
    108
    Reaction score
    58
    • Community Content - Bronze 1
    So, I've been working with some turrets for various ships, and I've had some interesting things happen when setting the AI to volley fire. Sometimes, they refuse to fire, and sometimes they take much longer to fire than if I'm firing and have the computer set to volley fire. Does anyone know why this might be happening and how to resolve it?

    If it matters, some of the turrets have only 1 weapon computer, and some (because I made them when I was tired and not really paying attention) have multiple computers.
     
    Joined
    Dec 5, 2015
    Messages
    108
    Reaction score
    58
    • Community Content - Bronze 1
    Did a bit of further testing, and on a 6 group turret using one computer, the manual volley sustained firing rate is 1.67 seconds/shot (36 BPM). When the BOBBY AI is volley firing, the firing rate appears to be 5 seconds/shot (12 BPM), or three times slower. In addition, it only fires one group at a time, so damage output is a third of volley firing manually. Using multiple identical weapon computers on simultaneous produces a slightly staggered result, albeit at a rate of approximately less than a second/shot, attributable to the AI switching between computers.
     
    Joined
    Jul 1, 2013
    Messages
    530
    Reaction score
    348
    • Legacy Citizen 8
    • Community Content - Bronze 1
    I've been running a dev version of the quickfire configs and noticed pretty much the same issue. And also that my cannon turrets for whatever reason refuse to track and fire on any targets, even though my missile turrets are working just fine. Checked the AI was set up properly, no idea what the issue is.

    I believe turret AI is just very buggy right now, and will be so until schema can get the chance to work on bug fixes (which developers usually postpone until after the systems that are buggy are fully implemented, so it'll be a while, especially with the bankruptcy and working on environmental currently)

    I'm still building turrets into every build I want them on, though. It will get fixed eventually.
     

    Dr. Whammy

    Executive Constructologist of the United Star Axis
    Joined
    Jul 22, 2014
    Messages
    1,787
    Reaction score
    1,722
    • Thinking Positive
    • Likeable Gold
    • Legacy Citizen 9
    AI can't effectively use volley fire. This seems to be a limitation of the game's programming itself.

    As an alternative, you could use logic to simulate volley fire by either staggering the activation of separate turrets or staggering the activation of separate logic-controlled weapon computers (and by extension, their arrays) on one turret. Your fire rate would be determined by the complexity of your logic but would also be affected by the limitations (glitches) of overly complex logic.
    Examples:
    - A Gatling gun made of multiple rotating sections: Works similarly to the old "chain-drive" system.
    - A rail basic with a small second entity consisting of a core and rail docker which moves down the rail path; activating buttons; each connected to a separate weapon computer. Increase rail movement speed using a speed controller to increase the fire rate.
    100x test 2.gif
    The down side is that these systems will usually not have any guidance, or aim correction and your target leading (if any) would depend on using a small weapon array as a "spotter" weapon.


    Regarding turrets not firing: That's a long standing bug that was never addressed. At some point, turrets will begin to fire off center from the direction they are facing. The effect increases with turret size and firing duration for your current session. I've seen some of my turrets (usually larger ones) aim more than 90 degrees away from a target in order to fire "directly" at it.

    I found a way around this issue but the method is not widely adopted (possibly not at all); as it was repeatedly rejected by Quickfire. As such, the solution is limited to my own private mod of Starmade where I am modding around the game's programming limitations and correcting a number of config errors in the QF builds.

    For those who are interested; my solution was to modify the block behavior config to increase the damage output and power draw for ALL weapons; thereby allowing (and requiring) all builds to use smaller weapons; which when mounted to turrets, are much more manageable and less likely to bind up and stop firing. You also need far less rail mass enhancers. The results are a much more realistic scale for weapon systems, (no more requiring multiple Saturn V rockets to shoot down a TIE fighter) unimpeded turret movement and greater creative freedom.
     
    Joined
    Jul 1, 2013
    Messages
    530
    Reaction score
    348
    • Legacy Citizen 8
    • Community Content - Bronze 1
    ive been thinking off and on about doing the same modifications to quickfire settings myself, but I've been too lazy and alternately busy. My turrets are on the scale of 100 weapons blocks surrounded by a sphere hovering over a base, so just above the threshold where I had to add five mass enhancers to the base. They were tracking and firing before the mass enhancers, but extremely slowly. With the addition of the enhancers they just stopped responding entirely.

    My missile turrets I have seen firing while facing the wrong direction, with two mass enhancers in the base, but they are at least firing reliably.
     

    Dr. Whammy

    Executive Constructologist of the United Star Axis
    Joined
    Jul 22, 2014
    Messages
    1,787
    Reaction score
    1,722
    • Thinking Positive
    • Likeable Gold
    • Legacy Citizen 9
    ive been thinking off and on about doing the same modifications to quickfire settings myself, but I've been too lazy and alternately busy. My turrets are on the scale of 100 weapons blocks surrounded by a sphere hovering over a base, so just above the threshold where I had to add five mass enhancers to the base. They were tracking and firing before the mass enhancers, but extremely slowly. With the addition of the enhancers they just stopped responding entirely.

    My missile turrets I have seen firing while facing the wrong direction, with two mass enhancers in the base, but they are at least firing reliably.
    Your turret's size is small enough where it shouldn't stop moving. Provided you have no blocks obstructing the sphere's rotation or that of its base, you may want to try putting enhancers on both the turret base and the main ship.

    At some point, the game began requiring this in order for turrets to move. Whoever made the change neglected to tell anyone.

    When in doubt, mass enhance everything but the turret barrel.
     
    Joined
    Jul 1, 2013
    Messages
    530
    Reaction score
    348
    • Legacy Citizen 8
    • Community Content - Bronze 1
    I actually checked all that stuff. Plenty of enhancers on the ship too. They're just being obstinate as far as I can tell.
     

    Dr. Whammy

    Executive Constructologist of the United Star Axis
    Joined
    Jul 22, 2014
    Messages
    1,787
    Reaction score
    1,722
    • Thinking Positive
    • Likeable Gold
    • Legacy Citizen 9
    I actually checked all that stuff. Plenty of enhancers on the ship too. They're just being obstinate as far as I can tell.
    Is your turret set to aim at "selected target"?

    There is a weird bug that will sometimes cause an AI turret to cease firing at your selected target, even if it's hostile or not in an "overheating" state. I'm not sure what causes this.
     
    Joined
    Jul 1, 2013
    Messages
    530
    Reaction score
    348
    • Legacy Citizen 8
    • Community Content - Bronze 1
    They seemed frozen regardless of ai setting. I've since moved on from that one (I saved it with only the missile turrets) and on to another build I've been putting off for a long time.
     
    Joined
    Mar 15, 2014
    Messages
    238
    Reaction score
    68
    • Community Content - Bronze 1
    • Legacy Citizen 3
    Turrets are broken right now. Try setting it to "Any" even if you don't want that. Setting them to "ships" or "selected target" don't seem to work, or activate the AI properly.
     
    Joined
    Jan 28, 2017
    Messages
    60
    Reaction score
    106
    it does work for me tho
    EDIT: selected and "any" work, setting it to "ships" does not.
    volleyfire works too, so it seems to be an issue with the selections.
     
    Last edited: