Stupid Ai

[Elexymorph]

I can't anymore, the Ai in this game is just so infuriatingly stupid that it takes all the fun away.
I really enjoy the game but the more ships I got and the more tasks I had to delegate to the Ai, the more I hated it.


First what I noticed is the Faction Ai is basically nonexistent, they won't react to anything.
For Example, a Xenon destroyer sits right beside a Gate killing hundreds of Ships and the Ai does nothing. I have to go in there and kill it myself.
Or one of their Stations get attack by Xenon or another faction they're at War with and they don't react. A single Destroyer from the SCA destroyed the Wharf of the MIN while their destroyers chilled in the same system not reacting.


The second thing I noticed it that sometimes my mining ships won't really flee from the enemy.
They just slowly turn on the spot and then fly slowly away since they lost all their Shields so they can't boost away.
Or they just flee directly into a horde of enemy ships and get blown to pieces.


When I assign ships to fight with me no matter what orders I give them some will always end up fighting 30 km or more away from me and thx to the Ai's love for the boost function deplete their shields within the first seconds of combat and then die.


And if I'm in another system they get even dumber like I get it is to conserve resources and that would be fine if this wouldn't lead to me losing ships in fights where I shouldn't lose a single one.


After building a bunch of Stations and earning a good amount of money, I invested into 4 Destroyers (1 Behemoth Vanguard and 3 Odysseus E). I then tested them against a single Xenon K and they killed it no problem (With me in the System).

So now I was 1 System away and another K came in, so I send my fleet in and they got rekt. I was watching the whole fight and i don't really have any words for it.
All 4 destroyers got in really close maybe 4 km and then turned broadside. They refused to use their frontal weapons at all and got clapped. Why can't they just stay at range and use their front weapons


At this point i just Alt+F4, I'm just done with it.
I could go on about all the other stupid stuff the Ai did, but this post is already long enough.

Again, I really want to enjoy this game it gives you so many options to forge your one path and so many things to do, but reloading the game multiple times per hour because the Ai did something stupid again isn't really fun.

Ar there any mods that give me better control over my fleets and enhance the Ai and has Egosoft any plans to upgrade the Ai?

[Humble]

I know your pain, nexus mods is good place to look up but I don't play mod as I prefer unlock everything as I can in legit way before mod thing. What I do is forced on A.I to support factions' economy, feed economy to met every type of their station's need while making profit same time to help faction stronger and hold the line from Xenon and other enemies. In early of game to Mid game, I just forced on economy to build up, I start replace M miner (very reasonable to start mining in early of game) to L miner (Once you had lot of income, replace M where it's got destroy (not replace all of it, just one got destroyed) to stop replace in future but it's costy,

Hopeful set up your own self suffierct shipyard (not HQ) to product free ship to replaced lost and ability to build fleet to help factions's sector keep safe from xenon and enemies, I did tried adapt and overcome whatever issues come up.

[Elexymorph]

Originally posted by Humble:

I know your pain, nexus mods is good place to look up but I don't play mod as I prefer unlock everything as I can in legit way before mod thing. What I do is forced on A.I to support factions' economy, feed economy to met every type of their station's need while making profit same time to help faction stronger and hold the line from Xenon and other enemies. In early of game to Mid game, I just forced on economy to build up, I start replace M miner (very reasonable to start mining in early of game) to L miner (Once you had lot of income, replace M where it's got destroy (not replace all of it, just one got destroyed) to stop replace in future but it's costy,

Hopeful set up your own self suffierct shipyard (not HQ) to product free ship to replaced lost and ability to build fleet to help factions's sector keep safe from xenon and enemies, I did tried adapt and overcome whatever issues come up.

Yea, I also wanted to play vanilla first before modding the game.

I just started replacing my miners since I make some decent money now.

I will definitely build more stations to supply the Ai, but I think I need a small break first.

This time I'm only 1 system away, so I can quickly get there and win again, but when I'm at the other end of the galaxy It's not so easy to get back.

[PeaceMaker]

I think you guys can be disengenuous sometimes. Maybe many of you don't realise it, but this kind of thing has gone on for years even with a GREAT AI.

1. No AI is perfect, no AI can match the human brain yet in games, except maybe chess which is simple compared. In fact it's really just Programmed Routines. Yet we expect them to perform as well as WE humans do.

2. Also it's very easy to blame AI cos AI can't pop up and say, "Well actually in that game the User was at fault, but he blames me! He does not understand what really happened. Let me show exactly what happened!"

Go online from a single player game and you'll often see similar nonsense from Human players (often even worse) , but rarely do humans complain cos they can get a response back from other humans!

At least a decent AI (and X4's AI actually is quite good) tries to play as well as it can and gets no thanks for it and can't defend itself.

[Elexymorph]

Originally posted by PeaceMaker:

I think you guys can be disengenuous sometimes. Maybe many of you don't realise it, but this kind of thing has gone on for years even with a GREAT AI.

1. No AI is perfect, no AI can match the human brain yet in games, except maybe chess which is simple compared. In fact it's really just Programmed Routines. Yet we expect them to perform as well as WE humans do.

2. Also it's very easy to blame AI cos AI can't pop up and say, "Well actually in that game the User was at fault, but he blames me! He does not understand what really happened. Let me show exactly what happened!"

Go online from a single player game and you'll often see similar nonsense from Human players (often even worse) , but rarely do humans complain cos they can get a response back from other humans!

At least a decent AI (and X4's AI actually is quite good) tries to play as well as it can and gets no thanks for it and can't defend itself.

1. I understand that no Ai is perfect

2. Well then please tell me what I did wrong I described some of my problems and I would love nothing more than to be corrected so I can do it better next time.
This one, for example:
All 4 destroyers got in really close maybe 4 km and then turned broadside. They refused to use their frontal weapons at all and got clapped. Why can't they just stay at range and use their front weapons
What could I have done better here? What order should I use?

I set up a Coordinated Attack placed them all at a good range and when they were all in place I gave the order to attack and then the problem above occurs.

And from my experience playing this game the Ai is mid at best, but definitely not good. 

[Gragan]

to be fair i feel like some of the issues have got worse after the new patch. I think the new physics engine has completely borked a lot of things. I want to love this game so bad, but it has so many issue putting me off.

[Humble]

I think other issues is that gameplay rule, there used to be travel mode can be happen even under fire, it's might work for A.I and less need to replace your ship, but they nerfed it, so travel mode can't be done under enemies fire now, same for jump drive would great help but they felt it's too powerful so they removed or nerfed so not only hurt player's power but A.I as well, and we had more issues with A.I now. Not A.I but gameplay rule changed/nerfed/make harder not just for player but a.i as well. I think?

[Wraith]

Originally posted by Humble:

I think other issues is that gameplay rule, there used to be travel mode can be happen even under fire, it's might work for A.I and less need to replace your ship, but they nerfed it, so travel mode can't be done under enemies fire now, same for jump drive would great help but they felt it's too powerful so they removed or nerfed so not only hurt player's power but A.I as well, and we had more issues with A.I now. Not A.I but gameplay rule changed/nerfed/make harder not just for player but a.i as well. I think?

that not a new rule though.
Travel drive could never be activated once your under fire.
all 6.0 did was give you an indication when that active.

Hell AI using travel drive in combat actually got introduce relatively recently

[Despiser]

Originally posted by Elexymorph:

I can't anymore, the Ai in this game is just so infuriatingly stupid that it takes all the fun away.
I really enjoy the game but the more ships I got and the more tasks I had to delegate to the Ai, the more I hated it.


First what I noticed is the Faction Ai is basically nonexistent, they won't react to anything.
For Example, a Xenon destroyer sits right beside a Gate killing hundreds of Ships and the Ai does nothing. I have to go in there and kill it myself.
Or one of their Stations get attack by Xenon or another faction they're at War with and they don't react. A single Destroyer from the SCA destroyed the Wharf of the MIN while their destroyers chilled in the same system not reacting.


The second thing I noticed it that sometimes my mining ships won't really flee from the enemy.
They just slowly turn on the spot and then fly slowly away since they lost all their Shields so they can't boost away.
Or they just flee directly into a horde of enemy ships and get blown to pieces.


When I assign ships to fight with me no matter what orders I give them some will always end up fighting 30 km or more away from me and thx to the Ai's love for the boost function deplete their shields within the first seconds of combat and then die.


And if I'm in another system they get even dumber like I get it is to conserve resources and that would be fine if this wouldn't lead to me losing ships in fights where I shouldn't lose a single one.


After building a bunch of Stations and earning a good amount of money, I invested into 4 Destroyers (1 Behemoth Vanguard and 3 Odysseus E). I then tested them against a single Xenon K and they killed it no problem (With me in the System).

So now I was 1 System away and another K came in, so I send my fleet in and they got rekt. I was watching the whole fight and i don't really have any words for it.
All 4 destroyers got in really close maybe 4 km and then turned broadside. They refused to use their frontal weapons at all and got clapped. Why can't they just stay at range and use their front weapons


At this point i just Alt+F4, I'm just done with it.
I could go on about all the other stupid stuff the Ai did, but this post is already long enough.

Again, I really want to enjoy this game it gives you so many options to forge your one path and so many things to do, but reloading the game multiple times per hour because the Ai did something stupid again isn't really fun.

Ar there any mods that give me better control over my fleets and enhance the Ai and has Egosoft any plans to upgrade the Ai?

Well, me pappy always says if you want something done right then do it yourself. Having said that, are the skills of your crew high enough?

[Elexymorph]

Originally posted by Despiser:

Well, me pappy always says if you want something done right then do it yourself. Having said that, are the skills of your crew high enough?

2 have 2 Stars and the others 4 Stars in Piloting.
How much does the crew level matter?

[Wraith]

Originally posted by Elexymorph:

2 have 2 Stars and the others 4 Stars in Piloting.
How much does the crew level matter?

it matters as it affect the overall level of the ship. (which affect it performance)

Like you could have the best pilot in the world but without crew being leveled that ship could can be 3 star overall

You can highlight over "crew skill" in the info tab and there should be an info box.

[Humble]

Those Crew Star is only good at allowed level command, but still not much help when come to enemies fighting out of no where, at least for miner and trader, that is, not much. 0 star is just same as 5 star when enemies raiding on your a.i trader/miner. I just lost ship no matter what star level is it.

[Elexymorph]

Originally posted by Wraith:

Originally posted by Elexymorph:

2 have 2 Stars and the others 4 Stars in Piloting.
How much does the crew level matter?

it matters as it affect the overall level of the ship. (which affect it performance)

Like you could have the best pilot in the world but without crew being leveled that ship could can be 3 star overall

Ok, so the ship fires faster and stuff like that?

[Wraith]

I don't know about firing faster but they do respond faster to getting shot at and stuff like that from me watching my fighters IS.

Also ship type matter but that a different story (nothing like seeing Nova still be the superior Interceptors)

[Elexymorph]

Originally posted by Wraith:

I don't know about firing faster but they do respond faster to getting shot at and stuff like that from me watching my fighters IS.

Also ship type matter but that a different story (nothing like seeing Nova still be the superior Interceptors)

OK good to know thx

[Inspired]

I'm with you on this OP, i've tried to love this game for around 5 years now, but this game keeps straponing me in the ass each time. I feel like the AI is unforgivably horrible and just sucks the fun out of the game. The 6.0 patch gave me some hope, but it's still full of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. My trading ships sometimes just fly into a random direction deep deep into nothingness for no reason, while they have a correct order to "dock". Hydras can't use Ion Atomisers at all while targetting capital ships (no matter which order, bombard, attack surface elements, attack turrets, etc). But railguns on a hydra shoot through capital ship surface elements and deal no damage when under manual control.
Large miners still can't mine if you are in the same sector with them, while medium miners lose almost all of their efficiency, yet when you go OOS, suddenly they become super efficient. Flee AI is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ laughable to a point every time my trader gets harassed i either accept it dies or teleport to it to save it manually because it sure as hell won't save itself.
Boarding shuttles still get stuck on the surface of a ship, so the boarding doesn't begin half the time unless I LITERALLY kill my own marines so the boarding starts.
New and pretty Ray ships (which are horrible balanced btw) can't even use their main weapons on other capitals (it sorta kinda almost works for stations, but even then their damage is abysmal).
And all of this is just ignoring the "little things" of ships refusing to use travel mode half the time, choosing to slowboat to the target at 70 m/s, failing to hit the highways.

So yeah, the AI is simply soulcrushing in a game that would otherwise be very good.