What makes a laser target a specific area?

[An Ning]

I don't mean "how do I get them to hit an ammo crate?"

I mean.. "why do my lasers always target the laser-shielded front of the Warlord (even though it can literally hit anywhere on the craft, as manual targetting demonstrated), and always the back of the Nightmare?"

Without manual targetting, my lasers literally seem to target the areas they are most likely to miss (the back of somethign fast)... or the areas most likely to deal no damage (shielded areas, areas with nothing behind the armor).

It has nothign to do with CoM... I know that because the Warlord's CoM is not in the bow.. so... what is it?

[Fatboychummy]

add an enhanced targeting chip to your ai
(Or whatever the chip is called)

[XenoDragon]

Originally posted by fatboychummy:

add an enhanced targeting chip to your ai
(Or whatever the chip is called)

Aim point selection card.

[Fatboychummy]

Originally posted by XenoDragon:

Originally posted by fatboychummy:

add an enhanced targeting chip to your ai
(Or whatever the chip is called)

Aim point selection card.

yes that thing

[An Ning]

Originally posted by An Ning:

I don't mean "how do I get them to hit an ammo crate?"

[Fatboychummy]

Originally posted by An Ning:

Originally posted by An Ning:

I don't mean "how do I get them to hit an ammo crate?"

In my experience Aim Point Selection usually targets the enemy's AI mainframe.

[An Ning]

They target ammo crates, engines and AI... and while I appreciate the responses to the title question... I would further appreciate it if the actual first post were read before replying... i'm asking why my lasers are targetting different points on different craft -and why they seem to be the most well-defended or non-vital pieces when they do.

[Fatboychummy]

Possibly the AI will just aim at the point with the most 'mass' at first (Not like the CoM, but where there is the most 'mass' clustered together)?
Or maybe it just chooses a random spot to aim. A test would be to spawn in the same ship multiple times and see where it targets.

[An Ning]

I did... every time I spawn Warlord, it targets the shielded bow... every time I spawn the Omega, the back.

[Fatboychummy]

Perhaps you can tune the AI detection to try and make it aim more towards the center of mass? just tune the timings of certain things, so that fast things aim more forwards and slow things aim more backwards? Of course this isn't really a great fix and may cause more problems, but it might juuust work.
I have noticed one odd behaviour though, perhaps the AI 'thinks' of lasers as a really fast bullet. I say this because I've noticed that when a vehicle first starts moving after being spawned the AI will aim the laser WAYYYY ahead of the vehicle, almost like it's trying to estimate how far the 'bullet' needs to be in front of it in order for it to hit (kind of like how a cannon aims in front of a moving ship so that... well, you know the rest).
Basically my conclusion is this: I don't currently remember what the Warlord or the Omega is, but from what you said in your first post I am assuming the Warlord is slow and the Omega is fast. The AI is actually aiming for the center of mass, but with the slow Warlord it is overcompensating and aiming forwards a bit too much; and the AI undercompensates for the fast Omega, resulting in the lasers to aim towards the rear. Of course this is all null if the Warlord is fast and/or the Omega is slow... Or if I'm wrong, which is highly likely.

[Csupasz Pisztoly]

Assuming you have proper detection equipment, it's an intended behavior, because lasers can simply be built to be extremly OP. With a cheap laser craft, you can cut a Bullwark in half quite fast, not even heavy armor gives enough protection aginst high AP laser shots.

That's why my lasers trys to hit the Bullwark's AI well bellow the water line, where lasers are much less potent... My lasers do this even withouth aim point selection card.


Then i tryed with lua. So far i was not able to target and fire my lasers towards the enemy based on lua code. I tryed to make them shoot only the superstructure, but have no luck.