Capital ship woes

[D-FENS]

(Noticed that 6.0 beta is running, and decided to check out what is going on after 5 years.)

After getting industry set up and re-purposing pirate destroyers/building my own to try to save my neighbors from being eaten by xenon, I've hit a point of boiling over when it comes to these guys.

If they aren't suiciding into optimal weapon saturation of K's and I's they are self sabotaging the fleet by not using their fore weapons for maximum dps. The only way I've found to save them from certain death is fitting a few of the destroyers for full plasma loadouts and piloting one to make sure at least some of the xenon weapons stay down. Even when giving npc pilots the command to target surface weapons even out of sector, when I end up teleporting in after some time, none of the modules have taken damage. At this point I'm unable to do anything except micro-manage fleets to make sure they don't take total losses against a single K. Micro-managing in X4 feels.. painful, because of order chaining I end up needing to cancel all orders very frequently, in a right click menu that is populated by quite a lot of options, causing misclicks and frustration.

The absence of a keep at range, orbit, or differentiation of fore attack or broadside focus feels like it just leaves destroyers to just flounder and get murdered as the K or I just trucks directly at them. Even if it doesn't outright delete a destroyer or two, it'll disable the rest with it's suicide shockwave. How does the pathfinding on these ships even work in battle? Is it possible to program them to just act based on the vector of an enemy ship and move towards a position that is more favorable?

Attack orders on all ships seem to cause ships to travel mode to a certain point, after which they lose all speed and slowly trundle on, nowhere near the target. This causes attacks to fall apart since a lead ship will arrive on time, while it's subordinates end up being in deadspace out of travel mode, slowly turning at regular speed to predict the targets pathing, even though they are no where near to make an attack run. Even when giving a bomber squad a move order close to a target, as the target moved away the distance ended up significant and as the wing landed, turned towards the target, they once again flew at cruising speed towards the target, when they could have boosted for a second to get at least somewhat closer.

Fleet composition in travel mode seems to fall apart regularly, is it at all possible for units to compute the average movement speed of the ships in formation and perhaps maintain a more reasonable speed so ships don't fall behind or fragment the formation completely?

Finally, when getting that epic carrier and wanting to stand on the bridge as it graciously travel modes into position, the NPC pilot decides to locate the first asteroid in sight and mate with it, obliterating all it's own modules and sometimes killing fighters that are taking off at the time... why, why do NPC factions gain immunity to rocks, while if you are on board your own ship, being piloted by a subordinate ... suddenly you deserve to pay for his mistakes? This mechanics is extremely frustrating, it takes out any cool factor of owning a large ship, being on board hampers capital performance to a critical degree at times. Half the time being Out of Sector applies damage (to targets) twofold rather than being In sector, other times it's the complete opposite.

At this point I feel like I am wearing cement shoes, just because I want to get those epic, combined arms type engagements. I've started wanting to devolve to S hull spam, because the blood pressure increase of the elephants dancing on landmines is getting to be too much.

Is there anything that can be done with these things, or are capitals a lost cause? It feels heartbreaking to have these guys fail at just about any task you throw them at, even though in a way they're something to strive for, to grind that juicy cash to invest in them, only to have them bayonet rush a station or ship they have no hope against instead of fighting a stand-off engagement.

[Daddy Shark]

You obviously just don't have your turrets setup correctly.



/s

[ZeroAffex]

I'd definitely advise you check out your weapon ranges on your destroyers and setup their behavior accordingly. AI will use ALL available weapons when they are allowed, so if the loadout for them is to "attack all enemies" or "defend" or "attack capitals" they will move into a range that those weapons can be used. Meaning, if you have M sized lasers or whatever with a 2km range, your destroyers will move into 2km to engage.

I'd say the best idea may be to just disarm all your weapons when you engage a station or capital until you are comfortable either learning the ranges via the encyclopedia or changing their behavior to other things like 'attack fighters' or 'missile defense' for your short ranged weapons. The main cannons on your destroyers do way more damage than any L or M gun/turret you have and have much bigger weapon ranges (usually 10km or more), so that's why I would just recommend disarming them if you aren't quite comfortable yet in tweaking them.

Once you have them either disarmed or setup to something that more suitable, you shouldn't lose destroyers much if at all anymore because they will stay at a safer distance. Also, formations play a big role too. So be mindful of that. You can have a good setup but a bad formation when it comes to fleets. And AI pilot level & ship overall level make a difference on their overall efficiency which accounts for everything they do and being able to do it better/faster the higher the overall ship's level is. All stuff you'll eventually want to take into consideration when engaging said targets.

Main thing, setup your destroyers properly and you'll be hard pressed to lose any when engaging capitals or stations. Least those infuriating moments will be drastically decreased. Bad stuff still happens but knowing how to utilize your ships is half the battle and will really pay off dividends in the end.

[MOK]

Even if the issue can be affected by doing settings surgery, the issue is that it had to be performed in the first place. This complaint shouldn't be recurring, constantly, for years, regarding basic behavior assumptions that players make.

[NoDMoD]

Originally posted by MOK:

Even if the issue can be affected by doing settings surgery, the issue is that it had to be performed in the first place. This complaint shouldn't be recurring, constantly, for years, regarding basic behavior assumptions that players make.

Exactly, by this point the devs should definately know that these are problems that need fixing.

I have come to the conclusion, that they just can't do it, for whatever reason.

[Daddy Shark]

Run a competition at all the major game design schools out there. The team or student that comes up with the best pathfinding system wins $10,000 and a job at egosoft.

[MOK]

Originally posted by NoDMoD:

I have come to the conclusion, that they just can't do it, for whatever reason.

That's my working assumption. That there's a technical reason, and no lack of desire and time spent. But I'm mad nonetheless because I've never seen any validation on the issue: No commentary from them about it, no acknowledgement of the issue. I'd settle down if I did. If someones got a link to them talking about ongoing issues, I'd be very down to check it.

[NoDMoD]

Originally posted by MOK:

No commentary from them about it, no acknowledgement of the issue. I'd settle down if I did.

Same here, I watched several interviews with Bernd, where such issues where brought up and the reaction was always like there is no issue to talk about. Either he didn't quite understand what the problem was or just ignored it on purpose.

[Bozz 💀]

I had some large engagements in my 2.700 hours or playing.

I rarely have to micromanage anything, you write like the AI is 100% dumb and never does anything right, which is not true.
It happens from time to time that one of my destroyers gets clipped because he went foreward trying to be the hero but usually I see my ships stay at range and shoot down ennemies, K and I without much issues.

Maybe it depends on your fleet setup or turret setup or whatever.
Also game doesn't seem to be designed around having too much destroyers, there was one guy who had a fleet of 30-40 destroyers and they all were clipping around and getting in the way of eachother... Was painful to watch but that's just a limitation to how the engine worked, I think this is actually improved in the Beta.

Some of your issues were also introduced in the beta and will be fixed, like the asteroid collision.

For space stations, I just order ships to "move" into firing range, once they start shooting I cancel all orders and wait for them to demolish the station works 100% of time and I lost maybe a few ships to station obliteration in my hours of playing.

AI is not perfect for sure, I no longer use asgards as it's just painfull to watch them try and have a shot at the ennemy....
But it's not that bad either in my personnal opinion.

[NoDMoD]

Originally posted by Bozz 💀:

I rarely have to micromanage anything,
...
For space stations, I just order ships to "move" into firing range, once they start shooting I cancel all orders

That is micromanaging.

[Bozz 💀]

Originally posted by NoDMoD:

Originally posted by Bozz 💀:

I rarely have to micromanage anything,
...
For space stations, I just order ships to "move" into firing range, once they start shooting I cancel all orders

That is micromanaging.

It's not micromanaging, it's just playing the game.
If you want the game to play alone you can have a look at distant worlds 2 where you can automate your whole empire and go sleep while your computer has some fun.
the last update is great and they will release a DLC tomorrow and it also feels a lot like x games.

[winslm]

I reached a point where I have several Asgards...I parked 2 of them at a gate where I and Ks come out... I go do something else... Get a notice they a Syn has been destroyed... Teleport over and the Asgard is using the flak turrets to attack fighters while the I is blowing up the Syns in my fleet.. I shouldn't have to manually teleport to the fleet to turn the ship around and shoot the main gun at the I... I didn't even have to move the stupid thing .. Just turn and shoot... Fleet AI is a joke..... Homeworld from 20+ years ago did it better.

I am waiting for AoW4 in May then going to put X4 down again.

[Zalzany]

Originally posted by MOK:

Even if the issue can be affected by doing settings surgery, the issue is that it had to be performed in the first place. This complaint shouldn't be recurring, constantly, for years, regarding basic behavior assumptions that players make.

The issue is it shouldn't be, they will want to have all their weapons fire if you tell them to use them on the target lol. This is next level entitlement you want AI to assume what you want, and change it up as you play on the fly, because you got guides every where you can find how to do it, and refuse to read them lol.

Think you know to do it please make your own game if its half as good as you think you can make it I probably buy it, but chances are you give up with in 2 months lol

This is like osme one going "get me the thing on the thing, from the place" and you having no clue, and them yelling "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ you heard me!" Its like what? "You know what I mean!" No I cleary don't "go over there and figure it out!" You do same thing with your fleet and go "no no no I want you to do this specific exploity thing!" I mean you guys keep doing this crap and honstly I think the AI should use it on your stuff so you can rage when they sit outside the turret range of your station and tear it to shreds lol

If AI worked way you wanted enemy AI would use it to, then you guys would be pissed it doesn't work anymore as they just sit max range and fling shots at each other with rest of the turrets just idling lol I mean fact I can already sit at max range and order a halt and watch them kill stations with out a single shot returned feels pretty damn lame and like a giant exploit. I mean in real life the other faction would go "hey this is stupid lets build guns with same range!" Instead just sitting there going "oh ok this is happing."

And of course Ks and Is should rush your ships and you want them to want revers in exactly the opposite direction some how at same speed to keep main guns on them?I can't even do that as a player how the hell is the AI gonna do this lol Its like the enemy ship that can move should jsut sit there like its skyrim and you in shadow going "huh guess it was nothing?" while being shot over and over again lol

[MOK]

k

[Zalzany]

Originally posted by MOK:

k

Exactly my point. Just say you want skyrim stealth archer in space next time you people will save so much time.

[NoDMoD]

Originally posted by Zalzany:

Originally posted by MOK:

Even if the issue can be affected by doing settings surgery, the issue is that it had to be performed in the first place. This complaint shouldn't be recurring, constantly, for years, regarding basic behavior assumptions that players make.

The issue is it shouldn't be, they will want to have all their weapons fire if you tell them to use them on the target lol. This is next level entitlement you want AI to assume what you want, and change it up as you play on the fly, because you got guides every where you can find how to do it, and refuse to read them lol.

Think you know to do it please make your own game if its half as good as you think you can make it I probably buy it, but chances are you give up with in 2 months lol

This is like osme one going "get me the thing on the thing, from the place" and you having no clue, and them yelling "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ you heard me!" Its like what? "You know what I mean!" No I cleary don't "go over there and figure it out!" You do same thing with your fleet and go "no no no I want you to do this specific exploity thing!" I mean you guys keep doing this crap and honstly I think the AI should use it on your stuff so you can rage when they sit outside the turret range of your station and tear it to shreds lol

If AI worked way you wanted enemy AI would use it to, then you guys would be pissed it doesn't work anymore as they just sit max range and fling shots at each other with rest of the turrets just idling lol I mean fact I can already sit at max range and order a halt and watch them kill stations with out a single shot returned feels pretty damn lame and like a giant exploit. I mean in real life the other faction would go "hey this is stupid lets build guns with same range!" Instead just sitting there going "oh ok this is happing."

And of course Ks and Is should rush your ships and you want them to want revers in exactly the opposite direction some how at same speed to keep main guns on them?I can't even do that as a player how the hell is the AI gonna do this lol Its like the enemy ship that can move should jsut sit there like its skyrim and you in shadow going "huh guess it was nothing?" while being shot over and over again lol

Like the fact, that when you don't give an explicit order (only move to for instance), the AI will not defend itself when attacked.

It would be most logical that ships would defend themselfes when attacked or have a standard behavior option for this, but there is no such thing.