AI. Using Secondary Weapons?

[H4N5]

Many of the secondary weapons are very powerful, certainly powerful enough to change the tide of battle. From taking a strong fighter to zero or knocking a huge percentage of health off a frigate, when I fly I always use my secondaries.
However, I just got a repair ship (a roach specifically) and, as they do not auto repair yet, I've been flying it as opposed to my combat ships and have noticed my fleet of A.I. ships don't seem to use secondaries ever. The secondaries are often critical and, when I do fly combat ships, sway the battle much differently than say, a previously load where I didn't and therefore lost.
I don't continueously monitor my ships so I can't say for sure if they do or don't, so I wanted to ask:
Do A.I. ships use secondaries?
If they don't, is there a way (when you have time, Chaosavy, as this is a super minor thing :D) to make them use their secondaries?
Thank you all!

[chaosavy]

They don't use secondaries.

I've decied that the AI won't ever use secondaries.

Here's the reasons:

#1 - like you said they are overpowered and turn the tide of battle. Either I'd tone them down (making them more boring) or I'd remove them (making the game boring).

Some have pretty wild effects - eg: giant clouds of fire, or radiation fields, used en masse it would create total imbalance.

Performance lag - of tons of fireballs or checks if a ship is in a radiation field, tons of projectiles from the Skyhawk's bullet spray, etc.

Some push ships away or tractor beams that pull - if this was used on the player it would be mega annoying.

#2 - coding whether the AI would use secondaries would be a real challenge - some are need the player to "dive bomb" (build up speed, release missile that doesn't have its own propulsion). Either I'd have mak secondaries more standard/dumb em down, or pick and chose.

To sum up - secondaries are a gift to you the player, they are there for fun - there's many elements in the game like this, enjoy them :)

(not to say that I won't discuss/explain my reasoning - if asked)

[H4N5]

Hey Chaosavy; that all makes perfect sense, thank you for calrifying! I'll keep ships who's best weapons are their secondaries out of my fleets then :D

[chaosavy]

Just so I'm sure you know:

You can change ships on the fly - via the V and B keys while piloting, or you in tactical mode.

Or press the Enter key (by default) then select the ship you want to hop into.

That means you can use whatever secondary you want - via ship switching.

[Atlantika]

gah, been wasting alot of money on my fleet ships upgrading them alot, far as passives and actives go, didnt relize they wouldnt use them v.v woulda saved me millions grrr

can they atleast use the passives?? lol and the auto turrents if they are equiped with them.

[chaosavy]

Yes, stat changes apply to non-player ships - and so do added/changed turrets.

YOU can use the ships actives/secondaries - via switching to them. Or in Tactical mode - select the ship - then you can use the Active ability.

[Atlantika]

by actives do you mean the active all the time passive upgrades? like shield gen elc / armour elc

or active Toggle abilitys?

[chaosavy]

Passive upgrade - shield health + 150 - always on

Active upgrade - Rapid Repair - SHIFT + 1 rapidly repairs ship at the cost of engines/maneuverabiliy and potentially taking more damage

[Atlantika]

thanks for the quick reply.

[chaosavy]

np

[H4N5]

Yes, thank you for the information, Chaosavy!

[Kitsune Yuki]

But still I hope some of the "weaponry" secondary could be used by AI. Take Ambius for example, the cruise missile fires itself when battle is on although that's not its secondary. Maybe there will be some mechanics to let other ships do the same on their secondaries?

[Rhunin]

could it be possible to in the future add thresholds? such as if a cargo ship has taken 50% of its shields in damage it activates shield restore, or if it has lost 15% of its armor and has scramble and shield scramble it uses both if it can?

i do fully understand your logic posted before and i would understand if not, but it would add more dynamic to the game and make each engagement more than statistically launching things into eachother if you get my drift :)

EDIT: or at the very least it could be used so that every ship in a fleet once battle is over uses rapid repair to counter repair ships current inefficiencies?

btw sorry to chaosavy for being such a persistent necromancer ^_~'

[chaosavy]

I have no issues with necroing posts or posting in general.

While I don't have current plans for ships using active upgrades on their own -

What you can do:

Switch to tactical mode - select a ship - you can then activate installed upgrade(s) (top of screen)

Switch to that ship (either via the v/b keys or via tactical mode) then use it's upgrade like you'd normally use your main ship's.

[Rhunin]

ahh! so there is a way to activate it without physically being in it? sweet, i find the v/b switching method takes too long and i get disassociated with the combat

so i end up just sticking to my suped up interceptor (thing is broken af in the hands of a player vs anything without turrets btw)