So I've been playing the game a lot recently, and found out some buggy behaviour / behaviour that could do with some improving.
Two Orders you can give your ships are Salvage and Escort Me/Ship (Ship is available using mods like FleetControl). These are fantastic in theory, and it's very nice to watch your ships mill about the sector on their own little routines.
However, the ship's behaviour regarding close objects could use some improving.
I've had many instances where Salvage ships would get "stuck" trying to salvage something that was too close-by for their turrets to lock onto.
I consistently have the problem that if I assign a "guardian ship" as an Escort to a Salvaging vessel, the guardian will get too close and mess up the pathing of the Salvaging vessel, which means both of them freeze in place. The Salvaging vessel stops moving because it's confused / can't path anymore, and the Escort doesn't move because its target (the Salvaging vessel) doesn't move.
I've had a couple of instances where craft moving through the Sector would slam into nearby objects that weren't their primary target, i.e. which they weren't considering at the time.
All these problems highlight one potential area for ship pathing improvement: detecting nearby objects, and avoiding them.
My suggestion would be to use logic similar to the Patrol AI code, i.e. using bounding spheres and distance checks, to periodically while moving (once every second, half second or so) check whether there are any nearby objects in the current flight path trajectory, or whether there are any nearby objects stationary around ourselves.
If so, try to move away from them.
Additionally, the Escort AI could be updated to use more orbit-like behaviour, where it periodically tries to move around its Escort at a distance.
Even more ideally, we'd be able to set an Escort minimum length, which exposes the bounding sphere the Escort ship uses to detect nearby objects (i.e. its target), and thusly define how far away it should stay from its Escort at all times.
----
I've been having an incredible amount of fun with this game, and I can only see it improving down the line. :)
I hope my suggestions appeal to you in some way.
P.S.
If this functionality is difficult to implement / not high on the priorities list, please contact me through PM: I've tried to add this functionality myself using some mod scripting, but ran into dead ends when I realised all the pathing behaviour / API calls are using some sort of back-end that I don't have access to, and so I couldn't script in the behaviour I'm suggesting myself.
But I'd love to help and do it myself, if I had the back-end assets here, with me. :)
Suggestion
Shrooblord
Hi devs, community!
So I've been playing the game a lot recently, and found out some buggy behaviour / behaviour that could do with some improving.
Two Orders you can give your ships are Salvage and Escort Me/Ship (Ship is available using mods like FleetControl). These are fantastic in theory, and it's very nice to watch your ships mill about the sector on their own little routines.
However, the ship's behaviour regarding close objects could use some improving.
I've had many instances where Salvage ships would get "stuck" trying to salvage something that was too close-by for their turrets to lock onto.
I consistently have the problem that if I assign a "guardian ship" as an Escort to a Salvaging vessel, the guardian will get too close and mess up the pathing of the Salvaging vessel, which means both of them freeze in place. The Salvaging vessel stops moving because it's confused / can't path anymore, and the Escort doesn't move because its target (the Salvaging vessel) doesn't move.
I've had a couple of instances where craft moving through the Sector would slam into nearby objects that weren't their primary target, i.e. which they weren't considering at the time.
All these problems highlight one potential area for ship pathing improvement: detecting nearby objects, and avoiding them.
My suggestion would be to use logic similar to the Patrol AI code, i.e. using bounding spheres and distance checks, to periodically while moving (once every second, half second or so) check whether there are any nearby objects in the current flight path trajectory, or whether there are any nearby objects stationary around ourselves.
If so, try to move away from them.
Additionally, the Escort AI could be updated to use more orbit-like behaviour, where it periodically tries to move around its Escort at a distance.
Even more ideally, we'd be able to set an Escort minimum length, which exposes the bounding sphere the Escort ship uses to detect nearby objects (i.e. its target), and thusly define how far away it should stay from its Escort at all times.
----
I've been having an incredible amount of fun with this game, and I can only see it improving down the line. :)
I hope my suggestions appeal to you in some way.
P.S.
If this functionality is difficult to implement / not high on the priorities list, please contact me through PM: I've tried to add this functionality myself using some mod scripting, but ran into dead ends when I realised all the pathing behaviour / API calls are using some sort of back-end that I don't have access to, and so I couldn't script in the behaviour I'm suggesting myself.
But I'd love to help and do it myself, if I had the back-end assets here, with me. :)
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