AI shooting each other needs some work

[Rage Panda]

i swear in fights my colonists shoot each other more than the enemy and most of my deaths are from friendly fire, there's times maybe it can't be helped, but times when it was just stupid

for example, i had a panther come into my kitchen and start attacking one of my colonists, so another colonist, being the over educated undeniable genius that he is, stood back in the door way and just sprayed the room with a minigun. he broke 3 walls, killed the panther and the colonist, then got all sad that his friend died. when it was his own stupid freakin fault.

also, when you have your little army of colonists, there needs to be a better way of organizing them than telling them individually where to go, they clump in a square, then the ones at the back shoot the rest. it would be a good mechanic say if you hold down right click, then scroll your mouse wheel to select how spread out/clumped they are.

But it also seems ridiculous when you have a a guy with a sniper about 20 metres away, looking at his friend fight an animal, he is going to line up the animal and accidentally shoot his friend in the head, like come on. that's as ridiculous as when i told my doctor to install a hand on a guy that lost one, and she ended up crushing his heart and kidney. like, HOW??

[Lawlzer]

Get better at combat~ If you have colonists with any spacing (2 in a row is fine), then they can shoot eachother. Don't use miniguns in doors, especially when enemies are super close.

[Astasia]

It's fine as it is. Friendly fire exists so that the position of your units matters. Don't let your pawns shoot each other, move them into positions where they can safely fire, or accept the risk.

Don't set your pawns to enter combat mode when they spot a target, that's a troll setting that probably should not have been added. Tynan just feeds on tears and I'm sure he loves stories about pawns with mini-guns opening fire in kitchens.

[KalkiKrosah]

Get assault rifles. They are more accurate from my experiences. Just be aware of where your pawns stand and do not sit them directly beside one another and be observant of when the enemy is trying to flank you and you should be ok.

[Rage Panda]

Originally posted by TB Lawlzer (AFK):

Get better at combat~ If you have colonists with any spacing (2 in a row is fine), then they can shoot eachother. Don't use miniguns in doors, especially when enemies are super close.

like i said, they just blob up in stacks and you have to manually move each one but they are shooting each other dead before that, then the enemy who have incindiary launchers and grenades make your colonists run in random directions, right in front of people shooting, the only option is pausing it every second and micro managing every unit. which is just boring for combat

Originally posted by Astasia:

It's fine as it is. Friendly fire exists so that the position of your units matters. Don't let your pawns shoot each other, move them into positions where they can safely fire, or accept the risk.

Don't set your pawns to enter combat mode when they spot a target, that's a troll setting that probably should not have been added. Tynan just feeds on tears and I'm sure he loves stories about pawns with mini-guns opening fire in kitchens.

i have my guys entering combat instead of running because my hunters go hunting, shoot an animal, as soon as it turns around they just run a few steps, get hit, run a few more steps, rinse repeat until they die. you have to have them on fight so they actually fight instead of just running and dying like idiots

[Battleseed]

Originally posted by Rage Panda:

i swear in fights my colonists shoot each other more than the enemy and most of my deaths are from friendly fire, there's times maybe it can't be helped, but times when it was just stupid

It's not the pawns, it's you. You are the one that controls where they fight from.

[Rage Panda]

Originally posted by Battleseed:

Originally posted by Rage Panda:

i swear in fights my colonists shoot each other more than the enemy and most of my deaths are from friendly fire, there's times maybe it can't be helped, but times when it was just stupid

It's not the pawns, it's you. You are the one that controls where they fight from.

i line them up in 2s behind sandbags and stuff, they get hit with a single explosion and run around the battlefield like idiots, in front of each other. and i can't control that

[Grishnerf]

ofcourse you can.
just dont get hit by a rocket launcher dude.
you can see where he is aiming (warmup time) and evade the spot.

but you already said you dont like much micro intensive work so i reccomend
you build a killbox for a more automated defense.

[Battleseed]

Originally posted by Rage Panda:

Originally posted by Battleseed:

It's not the pawns, it's you. You are the one that controls where they fight from.

i line them up in 2s behind sandbags and stuff, they get hit with a single explosion and run around the battlefield like idiots, in front of each other. and i can't control that

That statement alone shows you have no idea how to place them or setup a defence.

If the enemy has explosive weapons, why are you bunching your pawns up? -derp
You can tell your pawns to stop firing if one wanders in the line of fire -derp

Originally posted by Rage Panda:

for example, i had a panther come into my kitchen and start attacking one of my colonists

Why are predatory animals roaming your kitchen in the 1st place? -derp

Originally posted by Rage Panda:

But it also seems ridiculous when you have a a guy with a sniper about 20 metres away, looking at his friend fight an animal, he is going to line up the animal and accidentally shoot his friend in the head,

If he's fighting it, he's stading right next to the animal, correct?. My guess is you left out that he was also partialy in the line of fire. Even if he wasn't it's dumb to take that shot. Instead of fighting the animal, run it around by having it chase someone and when the shooter has a SAFE shot, then shoot. -derp

Perhaps stop blaming the game for your own mistakes.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by Rage Panda:

i have my guys entering combat instead of running because my hunters go hunting, shoot an animal, as soon as it turns around they just run a few steps, get hit, run a few more steps, rinse repeat until they die. you have to have them on fight so they actually fight instead of just running and dying like idiots

You can leave them on "do nothing" and they will keep firing at their hunting target even after it goes manhunter. Revenge situations you should always be ready to micromanage though, your pawns can't do combat on their own, if they don't kill it before it gets into melee they are just going to stand there and get their face mauled. Any time anything on the map goes hostile you should be pausing and figuring out the best way to handle it, then move your pawns manually.

You just absolutely do not want any pawns on auto combat though, ever. If you think friendly fire in the kitchen is bad, wait until one of your guys goes berserk in the dining room during breakfast and every single one of your pawns just opens fire. It can cause a complete wipe, your guys kill the berserk pawn, get multiple mood debuffs from it (friend died, family or lover died, colonist died, observed a corpse), other pawns get hit by stray bullets and get additional debuffs for being in pain, they break and go berserk, more pawns open fire, pets lose their bonded master and go berserk, more firing, everyone dies. Like I said, it's a troll setting.

[Battleseed]

Originally posted by Astasia:

You just absolutely do not want any pawns on auto combat though, ever. If you think friendly fire in the kitchen is bad, wait until one of your guys goes berserk in the dining room during breakfast and every single one of your pawns just opens fire. It can cause a complete wipe, your guys kill the berserk pawn, get multiple mood debuffs from it (friend died, family or lover died, colonist died, observed a corpse), other pawns get hit by stray bullets and get additional debuffs for being in pain, they break and go berserk, more pawns open fire, pets lose their bonded master and go berserk, more firing, everyone dies. Like I said, it's a troll setting.

Good point. Prison breaks tend to trigger this as well. Pawns on auto attack start shooting at prisoner and hit your own guys~

[Emperor Cheesius Secundus]

ok all i have to say about friendly fire is this, don't make a situation where that will hapen. You are defending, pick the batlefield. and about troop movements, just set up fortifications and when the attack hapens just send them up to a place where they can shoot out of (a sandbag) and there you go. really, not that hard. and keep your melle people (and animals) close so when and if they break in, they can run in and cut them up.

[KalkiKrosah]

You can use the poor AI against itself. If you move pawns strategically you can get the AI to shoot at each other as opposed to you.

I tend to favor having one melee character and equip him with a personal shield. Then running him back and forth a couple tiles in front of the rest of my pawns making him the main target. I then select the enemy Raiders to see the ticks on their attacks. I try to line myself up so that the enemy sniper has to shoot through one of his buddies to hit me. Then change direction right before he pulls the trigger. So now he either blows his buddy's arm off incapacitating him or I literally dodge the bullet.

You can also employ this same tactic on grenade users but not incendiary or molotov raiders. Those go off immediately upon hitting their respective targets and bypass your shield. Super annoying. If there are no rockets involved those guys should be the first to go.

[A-Mac]

Originally posted by Astasia:

You can leave them on "do nothing" and they will keep firing at their hunting target even after it goes manhunter. Revenge situations you should always be ready to micromanage though, your pawns can't do combat on their own, if they don't kill it before it gets into melee they are just going to stand there and get their face mauled. Any time anything on the map goes hostile you should be pausing and figuring out the best way to handle it, then move your pawns manually.

You just absolutely do not want any pawns on auto combat though, ever. If you think friendly fire in the kitchen is bad, wait until one of your guys goes berserk in the dining room during breakfast and every single one of your pawns just opens fire. It can cause a complete wipe, your guys kill the berserk pawn, get multiple mood debuffs from it (friend died, family or lover died, colonist died, observed a corpse), other pawns get hit by stray bullets and get additional debuffs for being in pain, they break and go berserk, more pawns open fire, pets lose their bonded master and go berserk, more firing, everyone dies. Like I said, it's a troll setting.

Just dont give your pawns guns when they have no business having them. Have a central armory, and when there's a raid, or a hunt, have them grab thier guns then. Or give guns to only the mentally stable

This way worst case of a berzerk pawn is only a few bruises, instead of a shotgun blast removing his guts

[Lawlzer]

Originally posted by KalkiKrosah:

You can use the poor AI against itself. If you move pawns strategically you can get the AI to shoot at each other as opposed to you.

I tend to favor having one melee character and equip him with a personal shield. Then running him back and forth a couple tiles in front of the rest of my pawns making him the main target. I then select the enemy Raiders to see the ticks on their attacks. I try to line myself up so that the enemy sniper has to shoot through one of his buddies to hit me. Then change direction right before he pulls the trigger. So now he either blows his buddy's arm off incapacitating him or I literally dodge the bullet.

You can also employ this same tactic on grenade users but not incendiary or molotov raiders. Those go off immediately upon hitting their respective targets and bypass your shield. Super annoying. If there are no rockets involved those guys should be the first to go.

I never thought of making the enemy shoot themselves. Protactics. I'm a -derp
That's my new thing now, thanks :D -wannaderp

[Battleseed]

Originally posted by A-Mac:

Originally posted by Astasia:

You can leave them on "do nothing" and they will keep firing at their hunting target even after it goes manhunter. Revenge situations you should always be ready to micromanage though, your pawns can't do combat on their own, if they don't kill it before it gets into melee they are just going to stand there and get their face mauled. Any time anything on the map goes hostile you should be pausing and figuring out the best way to handle it, then move your pawns manually.

You just absolutely do not want any pawns on auto combat though, ever. If you think friendly fire in the kitchen is bad, wait until one of your guys goes berserk in the dining room during breakfast and every single one of your pawns just opens fire. It can cause a complete wipe, your guys kill the berserk pawn, get multiple mood debuffs from it (friend died, family or lover died, colonist died, observed a corpse), other pawns get hit by stray bullets and get additional debuffs for being in pain, they break and go berserk, more pawns open fire, pets lose their bonded master and go berserk, more firing, everyone dies. Like I said, it's a troll setting.

Just dont give your pawns guns when they have no business having them. Have a central armory, and when there's a raid, or a hunt, have them grab thier guns then. Or give guns to only the mentally stable

This way worst case of a berzerk pawn is only a few bruises, instead of a shotgun blast removing his guts

Used to run my colonies like that. Had wepaons stored for them to grab when a raid incured. Found that it wasted too much time and left pawns vulnerable when they were away from base. Easier to just turn off auto attack and allow them to equip wepons full time. Exception to this is pawns that tends to get in fights with fellow pawns. Don't allow them to carry melee weapons till needed.