A cautionary tale, about AI salvage ship Captains

[Dogbix]

I had ordered my 'Salvager II' to Salvage, and off it went on it's merry way. A nice shiny new ship, with a level 3 crew and 120 pilots. Custom Xanion salvage turret / factory made salvage fighters etc. (Not cheap at all) .. :D

After a while, I wondered why it had stopped salvaging, I was busy keeping the same enemy sector clear of hostiles, using my main ship and salvage fighters. I zoomed out looking for the cluster of Salvager II's fighters at work. I then realised, there is no Salvager II.

Odd, I left them cleaning up a station wreck, went there to see what's what.

Salvager II's wreck, was buried in the very same station wreck, none of it's fighters to be seen.

I missed the message your ship was destroyed, during my own distractions, it did'nt take long, despite keeping regular checks, and Salvager II had around 420k shields, not that shields would help much in that case.

My best guess is, the Captain moved too close to the very wreckage he and or me were salvaging, and at some point the wreck exploded / moved and wiped him out.

These Captains, I've noticed they often park there ship next to the tiniest of objects, and refuse to move, until I order Escort me, and jump out of sector or take control myself.

Many of the Seargents on board were hired from a Casino, perhaps they had been gambling with the Captain to see how close he could get to the Station wreck ...

Moral of that story is, keep two eyes, or more if you have them, on your AI captains.

Hope that helps someone avoid the same costly mistake I just made. Days of Xanion gathering ahead for me.

Oops, to put it mildly. Sorry for the long write up..

[Karnivool]

My salvage ship with fighters doesnt move unless i add turrets. It just parks where it warps in and sends out its fighters. Sometimes it bugs out and tries to ram wrecks never sending out fighters. I have to warp out then back in if this happens.

[Dogbix]

I had been thinking, it may have been best to not bring in my 2nd Salvager, until the system was clear of trouble, leave him there and warp out. Salvager I, my first AI salvager ship has been fine, for days, and multiple sectors. Same ship design etc.

Odd that you need turrets !!, I find they work much better with no turrets.. but yeah I have observed strange behavior on occasion, when I am in sector too.

I just could'nt resist sticking around to try out the new toy, these salvagers were the best I have made yet, 10 times the dps of the previous xanion turret and best efficiency I could find.

[Dogbix]

Originally posted by Karnivool:

My salvage ship with fighters doesnt move unless i add turrets. It just parks where it warps in and sends out its fighters. Sometimes it bugs out and tries to ram wrecks never sending out fighters. I have to warp out then back in if this happens.

Just noted your tactic of leaving them, with turrets, and warping in out. I had not tried that completely. But as you say with turrets on they will go up to the nearest wreck and faff about and eventually get going.

For me, and I had looked around at other posts, here and reddit, my experience and others too, no turrets, and yep they just park and send fighters. Fire and forget, so to speak.

But even then, they do still roam about on occasion with no turrets, as must have happened with my above Station wreck, as I always leave them a good distance from any object to try and prevent this.

[Karnivool]

i actually prefer them with no turrets. Both for mining and salvaging. I find the AI to dumb to not ram into asteroids or wrecked ships. I have my second ship follow me around it has 4 full squads 2 miners and 2 salvagers. I have it mine first while i guard the salvage once ive killed a few attacks.

[Anthony AyeDog]

I haven't gotten around to building fighters/carriers on my current build/play-through, but I was planning on a Mobile JumpStation. No engines, but plenty of thrusters and intertial dampeners. Jump in, launch fighters. That's it. No moving into wrecks or none of that. Still working out how to make sure my fighters pick up all their harvested resources (probably custom turrets with miniized range, etc).

[ravien_ff]

Originally posted by Anthony AyeDog:

I haven't gotten around to building fighters/carriers on my current build/play-through, but I was planning on a Mobile JumpStation. No engines, but plenty of thrusters and intertial dampeners. Jump in, launch fighters. That's it. No moving into wrecks or none of that. Still working out how to make sure my fighters pick up all their harvested resources (probably custom turrets with miniized range, etc).

A swarm of fighters is very efficient at picking up resources. They'll even collect modules and turrets that drop.

[Anthony AyeDog]

Originally posted by ravien_ff:

Originally posted by Anthony AyeDog:

I haven't gotten around to building fighters/carriers on my current build/play-through, but I was planning on a Mobile JumpStation. No engines, but plenty of thrusters and intertial dampeners. Jump in, launch fighters. That's it. No moving into wrecks or none of that. Still working out how to make sure my fighters pick up all their harvested resources (probably custom turrets with miniized range, etc).

A swarm of fighters is very efficient at picking up resources. They'll even collect modules and turrets that drop.

Definitely are. Biggest thing to worry about, though, is placement of the hub. If placed smack dab in the middle of a field, fighters spend most of their time flying back and forth across the hub hitting the "nearest' rock. My mining-carrier ship got stuck in an a-belt a while back. More or less ended up being the same as my mobile station.

[FireFox]

I've noticed that I shouldn't use AI pilots for any kind of task that requires precision. Especially anything that could break loose and spaz out.

[Dogbix]

Originally posted by Karnivool:

i actually prefer them with no turrets. Both for mining and salvaging. I find the AI to dumb to not ram into asteroids or wrecked ships. I have my second ship follow me around it has 4 full squads 2 miners and 2 salvagers. I have it mine first while i guard the salvage once ive killed a few attacks.

Apoligies Karnivool, I see now you don't use turrets, I miss read your first post, quote 'unless I add turrets'. I am a noodle head at times.

Since the wreck incident, I have been, like you just having my 1st Salvager follow me about a bit, in less risky places. Talking of noodles, it was quite funny to watch the salvage fighters trying to eat up one of those stick ships (death noodle), the more they fired at it, the more it spun.

Thankfully the Carrier and me were at a safe distance, as this noodle was a chunky mass, looking one. Akin to a giant rotating warrior monks staff, in space !

[Dogbix]

Anthony AyeDog, I like your idea of a Mobile jump station, food for thought. I have'nt got round to stations yet. I have been putting that off until I had built up a handfull of 'Salvager / Miner operations, slight set back atm tho :). But your plan sounds good, let us know how that goes in the future, if you can.

[Dogbix]

Originally posted by FireFox:

I've noticed that I shouldn't use AI pilots for any kind of task that requires precision. Especially anything that could break loose and spaz out.

+1

This one sentance, really somes up the caution needed, if you are in the same sector with your AI Captain/s.

All that being said, it's a shame we can't combine Carriers with mining / salvage turrets, so they join in with the fighters. You can tell they really want to, but, the Captains have other plans on board.

I do appreciate how tough it must be to program the AI in general though. And I do love this game, I hope this post of mine has'nt come across as negative in any way towards the game.

On the plus side, wether by my own fault or game design, the fact that there is a good risk of loss in the game, in my case, several million units of Xanion, keeps the game edgy. No pain no gain !!

Also, over at Avorion's forum, there is a good post about miner / salvager ship designs that use their turrets, no fighters, as a cheap start out, that can be built up later. They mention after quite some experimenting, by placing turrets all round the body of the ship in a way the AI likes, so to speak, it has worked out quite well.

I really like the salvage fighters, they are a joy to watch, not quite the same, but brings up fond memories of the original Homeworld (mining). As 'ravien_ff' says they are really efficient.

A great game of this genre in general, so many ways to experiment. Looking forward to the Combat update, that will throw the cat amongst the noodles !

[Fluffy Pagan]

See I can't figure this out at all. I just built a ship for AI salvaging and it just sits there, less than 0.5 from a newly killed wreck. It has the correct crew, captain and all. Am I missing something?

[Anthony AyeDog]

@Fat Frog it's most likely caught up on small debris and can't pathfind. Move it out of sector, then back in, and then leave sector again with him left behind. Out of sector AI salvaging doesn't get caught up on that since it doesn't process it.

[Aurelia]

Now if we could only get the functionality added to where it would detect -only- mining/salvaging turrets when determining whether to move or not, so we could have the ships still defend themselves with autofire turrets while remaining stationary, using fighters to salvage/mine.

[Fluffy Pagan]

Originally posted by Anthony AyeDog:

@Fat Frog it's most likely caught up on small debris and can't pathfind. Move it out of sector, then back in, and then leave sector again with him left behind. Out of sector AI salvaging doesn't get caught up on that since it doesn't process it.

That did it. Thanks.