Unit and fleet AI

Unit AI.

I would give it a 3. They can do quite well on their own, but sometimes i wish they would pick their target more wisely (when auto-attacking).

Fleet AI:

A 3 again. What i dislike of the fleet AI is that support units, long range units and unarmed ships tend to be too close to the warzone. For example, carriers tend to go in the middle of a firefight, getting in the harms way while they can't fire a shot... I know we can assign them to another fleet but juggling with several fleets makes things quite difficult.

What i would like to have is more macro level commands to control the actions of fleets and individual ships without giving direct order to any of them. Fleets can get huge in Sins, controlling what the fleet does while you have plenty of other things to attend to (like other battle or planet management) can get quite complicated. Several times i left a fleet in an enemy system on auto-attack to mop up what was left but minutes later they were not done yet because they kept chasing scouts and trade ships instead of destroying the last structures...

So what we need is some way, of controlling the auto-attack function?

So no other ideals or scores, for the AIs?

Well, yeah, some way to control the auto-attack function would be nice. For example it's not necessary for the whole fleet to chase one trade ship or scout, a few ships (scouts or lights preferably) are more than enough. The unit/fleet ai should be able to gauge how much firepower is needed to kill a target, or if the current ships has any chance of catching the target before it leave to another gravwell. Of course, when you throw in support ships and special abilities, the decision making can get quite complicated for an AI. While i want the AI the get smarter, we should give human players the tool to control our own fleets/units decision making parameters so they act according to our playing style (hey, i don't want the game to play itself ).

We could also add, a selcet all ships of the same type, to the fleet AI. That way, you don't have to go to each ship in that fleet, and turn off the same auto cast, for the same type of ship, for the entire fleet.

any other ideals or votes form any one else?

Turn on stacking in the left hand sidebar. Use the shift key.

Unit AI 2 (should of been a 4 but like the posts above units dont behave like there class suggests stand off ships like to mix it up too much carriers stay back for the love of god)

Ps your never get a score of 5 if you do I'll send Sarah Connor after you


Fleets 3 (But I would love more depth to controling fleets more formations maybe a fleet bar that shows up on selecting fleet which displays skills that fleets can use lets face if hunting down that dam repair skill in a mass fleet fight can be abit tricky I know hotkeys is the answer but just not the same)

Try holding alt and click a ship.

I have big problems with the ai in this game so far.

1. PC allies are really dumb, they will have huge fleets and let them sit there while you ping away for help.

2. Playing vs 1ai with pirates disabled and the bounty me? Dumb.

3. Targeting. The way shields work the absorb a % of damage, meaning that if you have everything firing at one ship, it blocks that much more. But, fighting with large fleets I've noticed that (say with 30+ ships vs 30+ ships) they will all mostly attack differnt targets, almost never destroying anything. Ships need to better group attack single ships so that they die in a reasonable time. I've seen fights go on and on when left alone, and as soon as I go and start selecting targets the enemies drop like a rock. When a ships shields go down, ships should switch targets to take advantage of this, instead of practicly fighting 1 on 1.

4. Artifacts. To the AI enemies, an artifact descovered is a big bullseye. Sending a large fleet to take the planet as soon as possible. (this is a good thing, makes sense) but, ally ai, once again dumb, doesn't seen to react the same way

5. Caps. If you make the mistake of leaving autocast on, well... don't. I understand that its just ai, but it should know when to use abilities and what to use them on. I've seen powerful attacks used on small close to dead ships, def. abilities used when they are clearly not needed. Sheild restore used on reg. ships, instead of saving for something important, and magnatize used when fighters were not close enough to be affected. It seems that autocast is well named, in that it will cast all abilities as soon as it gets the chance, using all antimatter up. Then as it restores, they will use the cheapsest ability as soon as it is available, needed or not.

Unit AI score: 2

Fleet AI score: 1

This is a great game, but the ai needs major improvment. As a cis student, I understand that programing ai must be a huge pain, I just hope its being worked on.

But that will select all ships of the same type, regardless of what fleet it belong to, that's the problem.

yes bohbohb, turning on stacking solves that problem. Is it me, or when you turn on stacking, the AI gets smarter? After I turned on stacking, the same hare v 1.04 AI from before, did things that it never did before. Like attacking the same planet, as the Pirates, after it won the bounty war against me.

Something that was done in Act of war: High Treason, is that they add a stacked repair abilitie button, that made it so, that it was easy to cast a repair power or unit, with out having to hot key that unit or building.

May be a fleet function like for the TEC an reapir button button, with a coumt, of the number of times, that this abilitie, can be used, thougth out the entire fleet. Then, we only have to hit one button and the ships that needs it. The AI finds the closes ship, and cast the abilitie.

For the Advent, you could make it turn all the shield on at once.

And for the Vasari you could coat them with reactive nanite armor just before the fight, as the abilitie can be casted, on undamaged ships.

Hi!

Haven't played enough to give a score, but way too many times I've seen my ships flying out of a battle to some strange point in the grav-well. Maybe that was the consequence of their common target (a cap ship) destroyed. I've checked their auto-attack and it was on. I reactivated it, but haven't seen them turn and pick another target. Maybe my comp's too slow for such commands to get their turn more often.



What I miss is homeworld-style CTRL-select enemies while having selected my units. In HW this has sent my units after those ctrl-selected enemies. Now add there just the algorythm that will select proper target for each of my ships (threat level, can be caught, has best damage per shot ratio) and I'd (probably ) be satisfied.

BR, Iztok

i would like to see more formation options.
right now we get loose, standard, and tight. one thing i liked about armada II was the ability to choose the formation that best met the need.

so if i wanted a defensive formation it may be different from a bombardment formation.

idk probably not that big of a deal since i can just group the ships as i need them before issuing orders.

ive never had this prob. my carriers will actualy stay exactly where they exited ther phase jump no matter where the battle is unless you move them