1.03 strikecraft targeting problems

and sugestions for extra unit stance

from Sins Forums

It is only in 1.03 that I spot this problem so I assume it is related to the 'improved' unit AI. In 1.03, the targeting priority of trade ships and refinery ships are raised higher than structures for both fighters and bombers. As a result, the strike craft I brought in my attacking fleet did nothing but chasing civilian ships that are constantly zipping in and out of the gravity well instead of destroying labs, trade posts, refineries etc. It would still be acceptable for fighters to chase these ships but bombers.... that is just a waste of their fire power (and my time issue proper targeting orders).

Manual targeting yielded no better result for me because there seems to be a weird bug for all strikcrafts, especially when they are deployed in large groups. Once the strikecrafts have destroyed the target designated manually, they will halt there and do nothing without resuming to auto-attacking. Contrary to the above targeting priority issue, I have encountered this bug before but the current unreliable auto attacking priority calls for the need of extra micromanagement, which this bug is obviously...well... bugging me.

I am under the impression that the targeting priority of the strike crafts are altered because Ironclad observed a trend of using carrier heavy fleets as a secondary raiding fleet. It would make sense for fighters to go for civilian ships to quickly lower the income of the enemy. However, bombers are absolutely ineffective for destroying these small civilian ships and they are now a source of constant disruption to the normal use of bombers i.e. destroying buildings.

In fact this has brought me the issue of unit stances, currently we are restricted to setting engagement range only, which is a bit a lacking. It would be very nice to have the option of setting attacking priority. As an example, units in the RTS game by 'Rise of Nation' did not only have those typical aggressive, defensive and hold position stances, there are even 2,not only 1, raid stances. One that prioritizes attacking civilian workers, merchants or caravans and the other prioritize attacking buildings. (btw,  RoN has something common to SINs. If we are to call SINS a RTS version of GaCiv, RoN is the RTS version of Civ. And I love both games so much) That is to say if we can have unit stances that have different priorities between 4 main groups: 1.Military Ships, 2.Military (tactical) buildings, 3. Civilian Ships, 4.Civilian Buildings. The priorities within the groups should depend on the unit strength, which the devs have mostly done well.

Having multiple stances would have solved my problems with bombers targeting trade ships instead of the trade posts that keep churning them.

Otherwise, 1.03 have made great improvement. I'm so happy that the AI is no longer the coward they were. Thanks a lot.

 

18,984 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
i second
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Picking targets for strikecraft is close to the only piece of fleet micromanagement I do now. Capships get some attention too, sometimes siege frigates get sent to safer positions, and sometimes I have to specify a priority target to make sure an enemy capship won't escape, but mostly it's the strikecraft I give orders to. That's partly because of their speed, but in some part it is also because I disagree with their target choices.

I generally don't use the engagement range options either, since with auto-fleet assignment the ships are mostly doing pretty much what I want them to do automatically. That's not the case if I manually create a fleet, so there's probably some use for the options... but auto-fleet's behaviour suits me very well.

So... I think I agree that it might be possible to improve the targetting choices of the strikecraft. I don't know whether it is desperately necessary though - perfect target choices wouldn't leave much reason for me to zoom in to control battles... but what if someone else would pick different "perfect" targets?
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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
The AI can never replace mircomanagement and I am not asking for that. I'll still have to micro my bombers to focus fire on, say, the capital ship that may escape while avoiding a group of flaks.

My major problem is the current targetting priority of civilain ships are too high. I try to guess the reason behind the change, which is to suit particular raiding situations. (btw, i noticed the there are some new 'tips' text at the loading screen. One of them is 'Destroying trade ships decrease the income of the player', kind of verify my guess)

Therefore I propose an extra 'unit stance' option (that doesnt only bennefit strike crafts) similar to 'Rise of Nation' which can alter targetting priority of the units because currently there is only the option to set engagement range.

Oh, if these extra options would make it too complicated for some people(which i think is highly unlikely) Just have the option to turn off 'advanced fleet management' and have the appropiate default stances.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Honestly, some toggleable 'target priority' abilities to control this would be great. I'd love to tell my strikecraft what I want from them in a few clicks instead of micro: even simple things like 'fighters concentrate on frigates/fighters/trade' and 'bombers concentrate on caps/cruisers/stuctures' would reduce the amount of clicking required significantly.

This would be slightly better than a single priority list, as it'd allow one-click adjustment of priorities.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
I wouldn't mind this addition, but I kinda agree with astatine. This is a nice micromanaging aspect of the game. And while I see that it might interfere with someone running multiple raids on multiple planets it really shouldn't affect single planetray raids. And besides, it would just make the game easier in terms of MP with people selecting to just have AI run the show on their attacks. ONLY if turning it on and off was an option would I like to have it implemented.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
i've skip the post, so sorry if this has been said, but i just discovered a cool little feature, order stacking.

select a unit tell it to move some where, select move again and hold shift while you click. you'll create a path to follow. best of all you can do the same with attacking.

ok, so you still have to do some micro, but you can stack the attack orders from the emp.tree making multiple combats more manageable.

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
I've always wanted a game where you could choose target priority for your units, making it more of a my micro AI is better than your micro AI.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Amen Slap