Possible to improve the combat AI?

Ya know, less religious use of missiles, better aim and maneuvering skills?

A group of ships can unload 30 deadshots at you in the drop of a hat, but once they all run out of missiles, even the top-notch Navy escorts won't even put up a measly two-minute fight. Mods like Elite can make their ships tougher, but they are still ships that suck at flying. I am still foggy on how much damage an Antimatter PBC does, when I attack the Navy about 99% of the time.


Is it possible to change the enemy AI? At least to let them know their ship does have lateral thrusters? Give them some combat maneuvers? Give them evasive maneuvering?

The enemy likes to fly in cute lil' straight lines, and it getting a bit silly. [|)]

Okay, so maybe it is just me.. [V]

Mav, your question and the thought behind it is quite valid, there's just no easy answer:

There are several possibilities to improve but none of them are really practible in the Single Play game because the AI skill level and manouvers are defined by scripts. (Either the mission script or one of the generic scripts that run in the background.)

In the MP game we have made AI into a rather tough opponent, they can use 5 different attack styles, as well as evasive manouvers. We reduced the number of missiles they carry and gave them better weapons so they can "aim" better. In the current MP Mods, AI is much better than in SP.
The hard level of Academy Assault game (the multiplayer Instant Action game) has yet to be beaten by any player single handedly and as far as I know there is only one team of 2 players that have ever won the game)

I can't think of a practible way to override the values set in the scripts for the SP game. Primarily, because the attack orders are given to a specific ship (or specific group of ships) and you have to know the handle (name) of the ship (or group of ships) in order to query the current AI-orders so you can change them. You can't just change the AI orders in general because all the freighters are AI too and thus need their own specific orders

If you want AI to fire fewer missiles you can mod the capacity of the missile launchers they use. Since the non player missile launchers are used for all nonplayer ships generically, that would mean: friendly AI (wingmen) would also have less missiles too.

Have Gun, Will Travel

Where do I download Academy Assault? Or does it come with the what_rocks mod?

Edit: I tried the Academy and Academy Elite, but I don't know if it's working right. When the enemy hits me with a purple bolt, my ships start spinning violently all over the place and doesn't stop. It makes the game feel unplayable, and I don't know if the elite mod is causing it or if that's all intentional.

Originally posted by Mav

Where do I download Academy Assault? Or does it come with the what_rocks mod?

Yes, it's one of the games included in the what_rocks v2 mod. You can download it from the mods page here on the site.
If you don't have Epic online installed, just follow the directions in the readme that comes with what_rocks v2.

If you have Epic Online installed you will need run the little batch file to uninstall it first. (double click the file "deinstall_EpicOnl_beta.bat" in the folder EpicOnlb.)

Note: it isn't necessary to remove the EpicOnlb folder from your EOC directory, but you will have to change your flux.ini before you run what_rocks.



Have Gun, Will Travel

Originally posted by Mav


I tried the Academy and Academy Elite, but I don't know if it's working right. When the enemy hits me with a purple bolt, my ships start spinning violently all over the place and doesn't stop. It makes the game feel unplayable, and I don't know if the elite mod is causing it or if that's all intentional.

If you have the Elite mod you should deactivate it during MP play as well as any other mods that change weapons.

Normally a bolt shouldn't cause you to spin around uncontrollably, (unless your flying the "Pioneer" ship). In the "Wolverine", for example you should hardly notice more than a short jolt when hit by the AI.

Have Gun, Will Travel