[2.00] Player NPC ships do not fire Torpedos

[mr.WHO]

I bought Eclipse with 4 x Torpedo launchers and 20 Heavy torpedos - the ship is not flown by me but by NPC pilot

In Hatikvah's Choice I ordered it to attack Xenon K, but it doesn't fire any Torpedos, just stick to around 10-15 km away from K flying a bit towards K then turn 180 fly a bit away and then repeat it but never shooting any torpedos.

I tried to manually force it to fly closer and attack, but it just do the same.

I noticed that the with missile launchers to not equip missiles in ship information screen and set missiles launchers to secondary loadout.

I manually equiped missiles via ship information screen - still not torpedos firing.
I manually changed the torpedo launchers to primary - NPC still don't fire them.

What the hell is wrong with this retarded NPC?

[mr.WHO]

I also forgot to add the whole attack was done IS (I was like 500 meters from that Torpedo Eclipse).
I also notied that in the ship info it's noted that the Eclipse attack Xenon K surface element - perhaps it try to attack surface element at the other side of the ship and don't have line of sight?


Can someone test this and give me a hint if there is some specific configration that is required for Fighter to launch torpedos?

[mr.WHO]

I did some more testing with various configurations:

Eclipse with 2x mk.1 torpedo launcher and 2 x plasma cannon + 20 Heavy torpedos - torpedos are not automatically mounted on the launcher, but even if I mount them the Eclipse attack only with Plasma cannons.
Minotaur with 2x mk.1 torpedo launchers + 40 Heavy torpedos - torpedos are automatically mounted on launcher, but Minotaur doesn't fire them at it's target.
Nova with 2x mk.1 torpedo launchers + 20 Light torpedos - torpedos are automatically mounted on launcher, but Nova doesn't fire them at it's target.

[mr.WHO]

Can anyone confirm what is the problem? Some people think it might be pilot skill related.

[Kintanar]

I also think that it's about the pilot skill. I have 10 Nemesis Sentinel armed with torpedoes, and all the pilots attack with them. The only time that one didn't was my own fault because i deactivated the weapons.

One way to get better pilots is buying a bunch of the cheapest small ship with minimum equipment, say as example the Calipso small trader, i buy batches of 20, then check the skill of the pilots and the best are transferred to an other ship as crew (i have and Ides M Trader as crew/troop transport), later i assign them to my fighters ships.

[mr.WHO]

I see multiple YT movies where other people also have problems with bombers firing their torpedos (see from 1:30, this is exactly what my ships are doing):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHjUPaIfkPY

[Alan Phipps]

Two changes in 2.00 betas may have helped with this:
[Beta 2] Improved firing logic of missile-armed fighters.
[Beta 3] Fixed weapons with slow bullets or missiles not firing.

[mr.WHO]

I just tested 2.0 with the same setting as in OP and it's even more bizarre:

Test 1)
Minotaur armed with torpedo decided to charge on K, but not launching any torpedos - got killed by K easily
Eclipse armed with 4x torpedos decided to stick arount 10-15 km from K and do constant-non-stop 360 backflip turn (If I would know I could swear this thing wasn't controlled by AI but possesed by some ghost of real human).

Suprisingly Eclipse armed with 2x Plasma and 2x Torpedo kept the distance and launched it's torpedos (but never got into it's plasma range, even once ammo ran out) - this is 2.0 improvement from 1.60

This also contrading assumption that this is Pilot skill based as the Eclipse with Plasma/torpedo was the least skilled pilot.


Test 2)

This time Minotaur decied to stay at 10-15 km range and started spinning furiously (it looks like real life space ship with Jammed thruster - it almost looked like the scene from recent movie about Neil Armstrong). Not to mention it didn't managed to launch any torpedo.

Ecplipse with 4xtorpedos also decided to stay at 15-10km and do something like that - fly toward the target for several seconds then turn back and fly in opposited direction for several seconds, then turn towards and fly for several seconds...constant loop, but not launching any torpedos.

Eclipse Plasma/Torpedo was the only one that was consistent and did the same what he did in Test 1.




Conclusion:
Something is terribly broken when we have AI controlled ships that have nothing else than torpedos on their front weapons.

[mr.WHO]

More tests, this time in more controled environment (Xenon are not very cooperative).

TEST 3) I decided to ran the same test on lone Argon Mamoth in empty space.
The results seems to be consistent with TEST 1.

TEST 4) Decide to test this on stationary target (Argon Defence station).

Both Minotaur and Eclipse 4x Heavy torpedo decided to sit at 10-15km and start spinning furiously - Minotaur managed to launch 2 torpedos, but I think this was during first approach before it started spinning like crazy.


This seems to strongly indicate that something is wrong with attack script - possibly 2 things:
- crazy spinning
- ships "keep distance/turn back" too far (outside Heavy torpedo range).


This also makes me wonder if ships with mixed weapons (the Plasma/Hvy. Torpedo mix) have somehow shorter engagement range that makes them use their heavy torpedos, but stay outside their plasma range (IMO this is also sub-optimal and incorrect logic).

[mr.WHO]

I found out my original test ships (crazy spinning Minotaur and Eclipse) are nuts and "Fresh" ships from shiyard doesn't do this crazy stuff.



I decided to expand the test subjects for better perspective:

Elite Light Torpedo
Elite Heavy Torpedo
Minotaur one Heavy torpedo (wanted to buy Plasma/Torp combo but made a mistake)
Minotaur 2 Heavy torpedo
Nova 2 Heavy torpedo (mix of mk.1 and mk.2 launcher)
Eclipse 4x Light torpedo
Eclipse 4x heavy torpedo


Conclusions:
- fighters armed with light torpedo attack at close range and launch their torpedos reliably (tested both Elites and Eclipses aremed with light and heavy variants).
- fighters armed with heavy torpedos have problems - when they get to close range they fire their missiles, but mroe often than not they just beyond their maximum range (with the exception of Hvy Torpedo Elite which somehow managed to launch them reliably).
- having mk.1 or mk.2 torpedo launcher seen to have to impact (Nova launched both with no problem) or the attack quality.
- What is suprising is that Minotaur armed with one Hvy Torpedo launcher was able to keep at close range and launch them more reliably than Minotaur with 2x Heavy torpedo that decide to stay at max range.
- ships that stick and max range often have trouple to "point their nose" toward their target and in the rare case they get into closer range they also fail to "point the nose".

[mr.WHO]

This is also a rough guess, but maybe the number of launchers somehow effect the attack range?

It looks to me like a pattern that the less launcher ship have the more reliably they are able to attack and launch their torpedo.

1x Hvy Torp Elite has no problems attacking.
2x Hvy Torpedo Nova has some problems attacking (stick at long range), but is able to launch torpedos from time to time (less that above Elite)
4x Hvy Torpedo Eclipse - almost unable to fire (in my test it usually able to launch one salvo and then start to "dance" at long range not launchign anything)

Somehow I'm afraid to even test 6x Hvy Torpedo Pulsar :/

[mr.WHO]

Damn,
After more testing I can't get even a bit of consistency - same ships sometimes going for point blank range and sometimes sticking at max range.

I tested a new batch and excluded that the amount of launcher has any impact on attack range:

Eclipse 1x Hvy Torp
Eclipse 2x Hvy Torp
Eclipse 3x Hvy Torp
Eclipse 4x Hvy Torp
Eclipse 4x Light Torp

The only consisten data I found is that ships armed with Light torpedos fire more often and more easily than ships armed with Heavy torpedos - Heavy torpedo armed ships often do not launch anything even if they stare at their target at point blank.

[lordmuck]

Two changes in 2.00 betas may have helped with this:
[Beta 2] Improved firing logic of missile-armed fighters.
[Beta 3] Fixed weapons with slow bullets or missiles not firing.

I would scrub the "improved firing logic" ... Can logic be scaled / measured in the negatives? If so its at -10 atm
There are firing issues for torpedoes. I wonder if the mr.WHO would like to try a peregrine torp mk2 and pulse front main weapons with heavy torpedoes.

Also have you noticed your ships need to crash into the target before starting to shoot?

[mr.WHO]

Also have you noticed your ships need to crash into the target before starting to shoot?

Yes! In my last tests I noticed that ships that I ordered to attack station first fly to almost point blank (like 20m from the target module hull), turn back (or do a nice backflip loop), turn to face the targer again and this is the time they launch their first salvo.
I rarely see torpedo armed ships to fire their load on initial approach - aparently light torpedos have 5km range and Heavy torpedo have 12km range, but I see them launched from that distance like 2 or 3 times for like 50 attack runs.

[lordmuck]

Also have you noticed your ships need to crash into the target before starting to shoot?

Yes! In my last tests I noticed that ships that I ordered to attack station first fly to almost point blank (like 20m from the target module hull), turn back (or do a nice backflip loop), turn to face the targer again and this is the time they launch their first salvo.
I rarely see torpedo armed ships to fire their load on initial approach - aparently light torpedos have 5km range and Heavy torpedo have 12km range, but I see them launched from that distance like 2 or 3 times for like 50 attack runs.

they nerfed the range then, the heavy were at 18km and lights at 14km .. The lights at 5km are rendered obsolete and useless now as Light swarms are 8km and I "think" do more damage or very close to the light torp.

[Ragman]

My OOS shid didnt fire single missile their targets. Tried use mixed setup with turrets and launchers but still not single used.
Alltho this is 2.00 game

[mr.WHO]

It is know that in OOS missiles are not consumed, but they are doing dammage.

[mr.WHO]

Has any dev investigate this?

Might it be a same problem that suposed to be fixed in 1.60 (e.g. ships not firing missiles if the missiles are slower than target)?
I mean heavy torpedos are really slow, so maybe this is the issue?
However this doesn't explain why heavy torpedos are not launched (frequent enough) even against stations.