Targeting A.I.

[PeggleFrank]

Is there something bugged with the turret A.I.?

I went into a sandbox match on Bog to test something out. On wave 10, my violator with 300k damage was set to target the enemy with the most health, which would hopefully be the walker patriarch on that wave with 500k health. However, I found it keep targeting completely random lumes; it was trying to shoot the snorkers running towards the core instead of the walker patriarch. It took one shot at the patriarch, and then went back to shooting the snorkers again. I lost.

I tried this with all the other targeting modes, and I had similar results.

[Unicarn]

Weird, that was a bug when the game first came out, must be back again.

[Neit]

Targeting was slightly broken on some towers since I remember. It however works very well on most of them.

I'd still advise against using Violators (doesn't matter whether targetting works or no), it's too slow and when used incorrectly it more often misses than it hits, which makes the tower pretty unreliable.

[DoomyDoom]

Turrets are not supposed to switch target until it's dead or leaves targeting area. If it re-enters targeting area again, it won't be automatically picked up as new target, but will be evaluated normally.
If your Violator changed target within range, that's most certainly a bug.
I did a test run on Com Tower, since it has dense waves with very clear HP differencies, and I didn't register what you've described. Violators with opposite HP settings (max and min) were targeting different enemies whenever possible (taking into account what I said in 1st paragraph).

[Neit]

@DoomyDoom, I'm not sure what you are saying is true. I know that Focus and Drones work in way you described, but as far as I know, Gatlings are supposed to reacquire target after every shot. But this is theory, I remember someone describing this in detail but I didn't test it.

[DoomyDoom]

Originally posted by Neit:

@DoomyDoom, I'm not sure what you are saying is true. I know that Focus and Drones work in way you described, but as far as I know, Gatlings are supposed to reacquire target after every shot. But this is theory, I remember someone describing this in detail but I didn't test it.

I'm pretty damn sure Gatlings don't do that. For one, they have 6.7 shots per second. Also, I've tested their targeting quite a bit in my Gatling-only setup for Jellyfish Cove. It in fact relies on setting 2 gatlings to Most HP and 2 to least HP for beating that wave... 9? with tons of mutators. I've beaten quite a few maps with Gatlings only, and I've never seen them erratically switch targets. In fact, I think only Scatter Laser does that. Which, admittedly, I forgot to mention.

[PeggleFrank]

Originally posted by Neit:

Targeting was slightly broken on some towers since I remember. It however works very well on most of them.

I'd still advise against using Violators (doesn't matter whether targetting works or no), it's too slow and when used incorrectly it more often misses than it hits, which makes the tower pretty unreliable.

I know. I actually was trying to test the effectiveness of the orbital lasers en masse, as opposed to just having one or two, but I decided to take a violator along for the boss because I had a feeling it would probably be moving too fast for the orbital lasers to hit. I noticed that the violator wasn't actually hitting any of the right targets, so I decided to do some more testing.

I haven't tested with any other towers.

Originally posted by DoomyDoom:

Turrets are not supposed to switch target until it's dead or leaves targeting area. If it re-enters targeting area again, it won't be automatically picked up as new target, but will be evaluated normally.
If your Violator changed target within range, that's most certainly a bug.
I did a test run on Com Tower, since it has dense waves with very clear HP differencies, and I didn't register what you've described. Violators with opposite HP settings (max and min) were targeting different enemies whenever possible (taking into account what I said in 1st paragraph).

Yeah, I could see it constantly flipping around. It was changing targets even before it fired, interestingly enough, but I'm not really sure what it was trying to aim for.


What I'd like to know is what the "default" targeting is. I believe I heard something about every tower having a unique "default" targetting system, like having high-damage towers target enemies with large HP pools, but I have no idea if that's true, and I didn't notice the violator acting exceptionally intelligently when I put it on default.

[Neit]

I'm just testing out the Gatling thingy and it seems that it truly does change the targets.

I tried it in Park sandbox, with 1 Gatling set to least health, 1 Range Spire on a wave with Soakers and Runners. Gatling always had clear view on Soaker, which was the first enemy that spawned. Gatling started shooting at Soaker, but as soon as wave of Runners spawned, it interrupted assault on Soaker cleared the wave of Runners and resumed attack on Soaker.

[DoomyDoom]

Originally posted by Neit:

I'm just testing out the Gatling thingy and it seems that it truly does change the targets.

I tried it in Park sandbox, with 1 Gatling set to least health, 1 Range Spire on a wave with Soakers and Runners. Gatling always had clear view on Soaker, which was the first enemy that spawned. Gatling started shooting at Soaker, but as soon as wave of Runners spawned, it interrupted assault on Soaker cleared the wave of Runners and resumed attack on Soaker.

Huh. The more you know. I wonder whether Most Health works in a similar way then. As in, would it change to Soaker while shooting sth. else. SIgh, more testing time I guess...

Originally posted by PeggleFrank:

Originally posted by Neit:

Yeah, I could see it constantly flipping around. It was changing targets even before it fired, interestingly enough, but I'm not really sure what it was trying to aim for.

What I'd like to know is what the "default" targeting is. I believe I heard something about every tower having a unique "default" targetting system, like having high-damage towers target enemies with large HP pools, but I have no idea if that's true, and I didn't notice the violator acting exceptionally intelligently when I put it on default.

It was probably changing targets to something, and then that something was getting killed before Violator could take a shot. I'm not sure whether Violator's aiming time is reset completely when it changes targets mid-aim because of target's death, but I'd wager it likely is. That would explain why you could see it flipping around.

As for default targeting... Well, I resign to more tests for now.

[Neit]

Originally posted by PeggleFrank:

I know. I actually was trying to test the effectiveness of the orbital lasers en masse, as opposed to just having one or two, but I decided to take a violator along for the boss because I had a feeling it would probably be moving too fast for the orbital lasers to hit. I noticed that the violator wasn't actually hitting any of the right targets, so I decided to do some more testing.

I haven't tested with any other towers.

If I recall correctly Orbital targetting was one those that never worked properly but again, I never did proper testing. But they can still be used to your advantage. With enough crowd control (Slow Fields, Slowing Rounds/Presence, Mind Control against group of Walkers) it can actually work very well with any targeting and deal heavy amount of damage. I'm too lazy to test the targetting now, but tower can definitely be effective in certain situations.

Originally posted by DoomyDoom:

Huh. The more you know. I wonder whether Most Health works in a similar way then. As in, would it change to Soaker while shooting sth. else. SIgh, more testing time I guess...

I tried it on Patriarch wave with most health targetting and it seemed to work in similar manner since core got almost overran by Runners after Patriarch spawned, but I can hardly call it conclusive since the Gatling was almost able to instakill Runners.

[DoomyDoom]

Ok, first round of blowing up Park over.
1) I do confirm Gatlings changing targets on all settings.
2) Cannons are same as Gatlings.
3) Rockets work properly on Most Hp and Min Hp; they follow target until it's dead or out of range. Closest is broken, sometimes it chooses an obviously far target, no consistency for reproducing yet.
Off to try Violator and Friendship laser. I doubt I will get anything easy with Lightning...

EDIT:
Result #2
1) FL changes targets like Cannon and Gatling
2) Violator also changes targets in corresponding HP pool (E.g. I've seen it jump between 2 soakers or 2 walkers). "Closest" seems to be broken in the same way it is with Rockets - sometimes it chooses obviously not cloest targets.