Pilot Archive

Silly question i know, but do you think its time they brought them back or at least, changed the behavior of the current AI to be something of a split between the joustbots and the current AI? Seems to me, the playerbase is plenty fast and plenty powerful now to handle that. Of course, even then you had jokers in a Ywing LP setting their ships up as stationary gun turrets. *cough*

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Ducimus wrote:
Silly question i know, but do you think its time they brought them back or at least, changed the behavior of the current AI to be something of a split between the joustbots and the current AI? Seems to me, the playerbase is plenty fast and plenty powerful now to handle that. Of course, even then you had jokers in a Ywing LP setting their ships up as stationary gun turrets. *cough*

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I am from after this time period....... What are the joustboats? The picture im getting is a ship with a big honking lance sticking out the front. While im sure thats not the case, i need clarification to delete this image in my head.

Message Edited by Zotux on 07-25-2005 11:26 PM

Joust bots, or jousting AI..

The ships were as fast as players are now. Back then, most of us were too stupid to know enough to run EO3 i think. At the time i was a rebel pilot. Basically the ships would come at you super fast, then peel off to about a 1K range and come back at you again. Most players could not keep up with them, thats how fast this AI was.

Another behavior i noticed in duty missions is the AI swarm would break off into two groups. Or at least have a decoy. Going at one group, the 2nd one would come up from behind you.
I remember it being somewhat challenging, but perhaps thats because CTSS didnt exist yet either, so you had to react quickly and shoot at the group that was the greatest threat. A wrong decision on your part, could get very hairy very quickly.

I, for one, really enjoyed the joustbots when they were introduced.

I think I was using a dunelizard with one of my (/cryatwastedpotential) poorly RE'd prenerf level 6 engines to chase them down at the time. That was the *only* time I think I ever found using a booster to be useful in pve combat, aside getting out of blaster range to answer a /tell.

At least at Tier 4 and 5. Let the new kids work their way into them.

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JanuHull wrote:
At least at Tier 4 and 5. Let the new kids work their way into them.

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You say that as if the Jousting AI would be harder. I thought the two primary issues with jousting AI was 1) how easy it became for experienced pilots to abuse their predictable, straight-line flight patterns and 2) it was near impossible to do ''get on their tail'' tactics against some of them.

With what we know now, jousting AI would get raped worse than before. Shield commands, CtSS, L3 Overloads or higher, and better equipment means we'll have multiple ways to rip apart jousters. We could probably now handle staying behind NPC A-Wings now, even though we couldn't before (RotW ships with L8 RE'd Starmap Engines) and we have even better firepower when doing head-on passes (RE'd L7/8/10 Weapons).

What would be nice is some unpredictability in the ships. What made jousting AI easy to overcome happened to the circling ships that we have now - we adjusted to predictable behavior and found good ways to compensate for it. Programming AI that will adjust back at the player is waaaay more complicated than jousting vs circling.

Psikobunny does mention this type of thing in his 10 Ways thread, though this might be a good place to focus on NPC flight behavior issues.

Shona

I honestly think some people won't be happy until everything goes a 1/5 the speed it does now whilst doing 1/5 the damage.

But I'm sure they'll "settle" for a mere 1/2 reduction...because JTL is SOOOOOOOO hard.

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KaylBreinhar wrote:
I honestly think some people won't be happy until ....

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I think this thread is more about how to make things harder (ot at least more interesting), not easier. Full of hate, you are. Lighten up, you should.

Shona

i dont think jousting ai is the answer, but the current match player engine and perfrom half$^% evasive manuvers ai has to go.

idealy, i would like to see the ai get as fast and almost as manuverable as a player, and use real manuvers on you. to counter the increase in difficulty to hit them, their artificialy inflated shields/armor/componentHP should be drasticly brought down. at the same time, their rate of fire should be brought up to about what i player has, and their accuracy should be brought down.

basicly, i want fighting npcs to be more like pvp.

AI cooperation is really needed.
You've seen it...going againts 3 hostiles. Your pelting one...what do the other two do?...They fly around oblivious to the plight their brethren is in.

Now if the AI is now programmed to jink and go max thrust if it's getting hit and signalling to wingmen to hit it's attacker.....things would get interesting.

It's sorta like the lack of cooperation of AI's on the ground.. You shoot one stormtrooper and the rest stand around as if nothing happened. They don't even disperse to make it harder to take them all out...

The AI on a one on one situation is pretty reasonable...but the lack of group AI just makes killing them too easy.

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Ducimus wrote:

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SheenaBrelya wrote:

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JanuHull wrote:
At least at Tier 4 and 5. Let the new kids work their way into them.

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You say that as if the Jousting AI would be harder. I thought the two primary issues with jousting AI was 1) how easy it became for experienced pilots to abuse their predictable, straight-line flight patterns and 2) it was near impossible to do ''get on their tail'' tactics against some of them.

With what we know now, jousting AI would get raped worse than before.

Shona

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Its that predictablity is why i also suggested a modified version or combination of current AI with the joustbot AI.

At the least they should be speed up to match player ships.

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