Fighters in AI ships.

[Valek]

I was wondering about possible application of fleets. I experimented with "weapon" fighters, it went decently. Still imo not worth a hassle, since fighers fells too squishy and somtimes carriers just "run out" of fighters. I didn't want to constantly babysit them and in the end got rid of them altogether.

Recently I added a small carrier to my auxiliary (mining) fleet. I hoped that it will provide some slave work (I'm sick of constantly repairing my mining drones damaging themselves in dense asteroid fields) using mining and salvaging fighters. But after a while of testing I failed to make them work. Giving carrier order to mine just turns it in idle state.

I'm looking for some input or a workaround. Any ideas or that is simply not possible at current state of AI?

 

Edit: Looks like I found a workaround. I had to equip my carrier with at least one (in my case) mining turret and after giving an order to the ship it launched fighters. However I noticed some weird AI behaviour. Second after fighters left the hangars, they reached maximum speed and started chaseing after one of their own constantly shooting at it. They failed to destroy it but still it looks odd. Sometime later I spotted one fighter chaseing my mining drone doing same thing. Once again I scrached my head. But after refreshing the order to mine stray fighter broke contact with mining drone, joined the pack and resume normal operation.

Still this is more efficient (while playing vanilla game) to maintain fighters, because after overwriting order to mine (fe. with escort me) all fighters returning to hangars automatically.

I bet this method working with salvaging lasers too. I'll keep testing and documenting my results in this topic. Maybe someone is intrested in launching his own carrier fleet and it might save him some time reading through my findings:)

[Ravien]

Yeah AI controlled mining carriers work decently well. Salvage fighters I had problems with though since on larger wrecks, salvage fighters will miss most of the time due to being out of range.

[Valek]

Yeah AI controlled mining carriers work decently well. Salvage fighters I had problems with though since on larger wrecks, salvage fighters will miss most of the time due to being out of range.

I had my fair share dealing with salvaging fighters, but decided to not even bother. AI ships in general handle salvaging terribly, but what you wrote is just a tip of an iceberg. To me main problem is AI try to housekeep so hard, that it bothers with the tiniest pieces of junk. I only use salvaging when stumble upon big delerict ships. Just quickly converting one of my drones and do work manually targeting only the juciest spots.

 

In the meantime a handful of information about AI fighters.

If I remember correctly from 0.12 the sectors occupied by player vessels stay loaded. So you are able to set-up mining operation when you are teaching pirates some manners or just pest control the Xsotans. However it seems that AI fighters doesn't always do their intended work while you're absent. Upon player entering the sector they resume normal operation. It's an inconsistent bug. I only tested it with one carrier equipped with crappiest mining laser I had.

Next thing is that carriers can't hyperjump while fighters are launched away. It's not a bug imo and I suppose it's intended feature, however it's quite dangerous. Situation: While your carrier following you ("escort me order"), you're jumping into "dark" sector and stumbling upon overwhelming enemy fleet. Instantly got attacked and forced to retreat. AI responding with launching fighters and commencing attack - so the carrier is basically destroyed. Best strat is of course to scout the sectors first, leaving mining fleet in safeish sectors. Just something to remember.

The last thing I noticed is more QoL thingy. The fighter "ram protecton" mechanics and they ability to dock efficiently. The "ram protection" mechanics is simple. Fighters still can be shot down by projectiles or energy beams, but can't be destroyed by ramming. Upon contact with hull of other ships, they just skidding on the surface or teleporting out of the way. Taking this mechanics into concideration I noticed that when dock is in some way recessed in hull, they often have trouble docking. Constantly hitting hull and therefore teleporting all over the place. Sometimes even bugging out in loop until carrier change its bearing.

 

That's all I've got this time. When I'll find someting new worth sharing I'll let you guys know. Peace.

[Shrooblord]

Thanks for sharing, Valek. These are indeed insightful remarks to take a few lessons from.

 

I sort of disagree with the design decision to make fighters immune to ramming though. If you want to play Orc Style and ram your way through to Galactic Supremacy, you should be able to squish pesky mosquito fighters with your massively oversized hunk of flying space junk if that's what you want to do. :P

 

I see where the decision came from: you don't want fighters accidentally flying into stuff and destroying themselves, or hitting the hull of passer-by NPCs and wrecking themselves, asteroid fields etc., or kill themselves on your own carrier while they try to dock back in with the mothership. However, I feel the solution to this is not to make them completely immune to ramming, but give them some sort of shield against ramming that slowly recharges over time after it's depleted. I mean, honestly, if you, the player, really really want to ram into your enemies to kill them, you should be able to, right?

 

The mother carrier could even have an invincibility bubble around her, where the invincible to ramming is still active, so they definitely won't deplete their shields trying to interact with the mother carrier. Or perhaps the carrier regenerates their shields super quick when they're near her, which would also add an extra layer of gameplay design: hit and run type fighters.