Any way to have a ship cycle its weapons/targets?
 

I've got a Base Ship with tons of weapons, but it ends up wasting most of them by overkilling single ships, one at a time. <:/ So every five seconds it takes one down with about 1,000+ damage, when it could be taking down three or four enemies in that space of time if it just used its weapons a bit smarter. Is the only way to get this done to go down into tactical and micromanage every single target? <:\

EDIT:
Likewise, I've got a ton of kamikaze fighters, and they waste a TON of time by all chasing after the same target.
I wish there were something in the "strategy" section - a "Target Deprioritizing List". Like, if a target loses all its weapons, then don't target it anymore, or if it's already the target of an ally, don't target it anymore, or don't fire more than 100%, 150%, 200% projected damage at the target at any time (in that case, switch to another target)...like that.

Re: Any way to have a ship cycle its weapons/targets?
 

Yeah, I've noticed the same thing. Sort of the problem with Point Defense too. There should be a sort of random tiny delay for each weapon, so that they fired miliseconds apart: but enough so that they'd register if the ship/seeker was already destroyed before wasting a shot.

Re: Any way to have a ship cycle its weapons/targets?
 

I had issues with this in se4. The se4 solution was to factor your enemy's average ship defenses into the order which you added weapons to your designs. It probably isn't smart, for example, to add shield depletors after "all damage" weapons because the fire order would lead your ships to take down shields with all damage weapons and then be left with nothing to use the depletors on, basically wasting them. I always thought this was an assinine solution because a much better answer would be to enhance the strategic combat AI. But Malfaydor is but a wee company so enhancements take a long time.

I'm not sure if there's another workaround in se5. If the strategic combat scripts are moddable we can go to town and fix it ourselves! but I have no idea if it is...

Re: Any way to have a ship cycle its weapons/targets?
 

Does it matter what "order" weapons are put in with SE5?

Re: Any way to have a ship cycle its weapons/targe
 

It shouldnt, because with real time combat, all weapons fire the moment they are able (simultaneous fire as opposed to turn-based fire). However, you still have the issue with not being able to control where the fire goes. But then, we also don't need multiplex tracking in SE5.

It occurs to me that if SE5 could somehow be modded to allow ships to spread thier fire more effectively, multiplex tracking modules could be the means to do this - bringing them back in a fun new way.

Re: Any way to have a ship cycle its weapons/targe
 

I believe what you need is multiplex targetting. That should do the trick, I think.

Re: Any way to have a ship cycle its weapons/targe
 

That doesn't exist in SE5.

Re: Any way to have a ship cycle its weapons/targe
 

I really think it should still exist. I still need to really go through all the strategy options but it seems like an overly complicated way to get the weapons to spread out their available attacks. If there are 5 equal types of target all with in range I would hope that they all get an equal amount of weapons fired at them....

Re: Any way to have a ship cycle its weapons/targe
 

That's not really what you want, since you need to breach shields and armor before you reduce the enemy's ability to fight back any.

Instead, try the priorities involving "less than X% damage targetted"
Send enough fire at a ship to crush it, but not too much overkill.

If there aren't any other targets in range, the ships will fire all their guns anyways, just because they can, though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: Any way to have a ship cycle its weapons/targe
 

Those priorties don't seem to work very well SJ. People are reporting massive overkill even when <50% is set as the top priority..even when multiple targets are in range.

Re: Any way to have a ship cycle its weapons/targe
 

For GGmod, I tweaked the settings.txt values:
Estimated Targeting Damage Percent for Bolt Weapon := 200
And I used the <50% strategy setting...

I got quite a nice missile spreadfire there.
http://imagemodserver.mine.nu/other/...e-o-vision.jpg

Re: Any way to have a ship cycle its weapons/targe
 

So if I get GGmod, and use the <50% strategy setting, that'll make my ship do basically what I want? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Any way to have a ship cycle its weapons/targe
 

You should be able to do it in stock too. The trick is to make your other prioritizations compatible with rapidly switching targets.

Re: Any way to have a ship cycle its weapons/targe
 

Where can I download GGmod anyway, just to give it a try?
I'm still a little unclear on what I need to change exactly. Could you maybe explain the settings a little more, or just take a screenshot of a ship you've already setup? Thanks. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Any way to have a ship cycle its weapons/targe
 

GGmod is waiting on a few more beta patches before it will really be playable.

Go to your empire options menu, and scroll to the bottom. Your strategies are down there. Select one, select the priorities, and set them.

Has weapons, <50%, and least damaged will help spread fire.

Re: Any way to have a ship cycle its weapons/targe
 

I've gotten ships to spread their fire out a little now, but even with the priority:

<50% structure
Strongest
Most Shields
Most Armor
Most Crew

all the fire is still directed onto one ship at a time.

Say a ship has 9 guns. Salvo 1 will attack one ship, salvo 2 another..but all 9 guns will fire at the same ship each time.

Re: Any way to have a ship cycle its weapons/targe
 

How much damage does that one salvo do?

Given stock's estimate of 50% hits in settings.txt, you'd have to have a lot of firepower to trigger that <50% targetting option.

Also, note that the enemy's shield strength dosen't actually change until your weapons impact. Most weapons have a long enough time-to-target that a ship will unload all its guns before the first shot hits.

And, of course, if there is only one target in range, it dosen't matter what your priorities are, all guns will fire on it.

Re: Any way to have a ship cycle its weapons/targe
 

Isn't it in all cases best to use the 'Undamaged Weapons' thingy as a #1 priority, and then <50% structure?

At any rate, there's no way to prevent ships firing all weapons of same type at the same time, as far as I know. All weapons of the same type comes within range of the target at exactly the same time and they also have the same reload time. In other words, there's no time for any 'priority' checks between the different same-type weapons because they all fire exactly at the same time, everytime.

That's why I'd like some sort of tiny random delay between each weapon firing.

Re: Any way to have a ship cycle its weapons/targe
 

The one salvo totally anhiliated the target, with MUCH overkill. This was Starbase vs Frigate, using all ABPs then all missiles, then starbase vs fighters with Bomblet missiles.

The thing is, it didn't all fire at the same time. The last bomblet missile fired just BEFORE the target exploded; there were at least 20 in flight, in a steady stream. That's several hundred percent overkill. :/

This is a major issue, as it allows fighters to annhiliate a defender with sheer numbers when that shouldn't be possible.

When I tested it vs non-instadeath targets, that's when I saw the targeting move before death.

Re: Any way to have a ship cycle its weapons/targe
 

Hmm...
That sounds consistent my current theory about shots-in-flight not counting towards the targeting stats.

Re: Any way to have a ship cycle its weapons/targe
 

No matter what the source, its a problem..

Re: Any way to have a ship cycle its weapons/targe
 

My Kamikaze defense is totally trashed by the fact that they'll all go after the same ship at once half of the time. <:/

I'm new to this game, and I love it, but issues like these really take me out of the experience, it just seems so absurd and buggy. I have more success using a handful of fast ships with long-range weapons than I do with a hulking base ship.

Re: Any way to have a ship cycle its weapons/targe
 

I suppose it also helps in ggmod that even a Battlefortress dosen't tend to vaporize medium ships in one volley...

You get lots of action and slow crippling before they go down in flames.

Overkill is rarely an issue, and that 50% at double expected means you don't tend to waste any shots unless there is a lack of targets in range...
And with the ability to build 30 scouts per turn at a homeworld, and the whole fighters thing, that dosen't happen too often either http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Any way to have a ship cycle its weapons/targe
 

Really kinda makes researching larger ships pointless doesn't it?

Why use a group of big ships when you can just throw 30 or 40 frigates at someone, knowing they won't be able to shoot them all...

The strategies should either use a damage prediction model, to see how much damage a single shot is likely to do, and then count that when each weapon is fired, or they should have a cycle targets option. I could see priority spreads being very useful in strategies.

Re: Any way to have a ship cycle its weapons/targe
 

I believe destroyers are actually better than dreadnaughts on an equal cost basis. Did several simulations with that.

Re: Any way to have a ship cycle its weapons/targe
 

It actually makes mixed fleets important.

Re: Any way to have a ship cycle its weapons/targe
 

One way to make bigger ships more interesting at the moment might be that their mounts decrease the weapon reload time instead of increasing the damage amount.
But of course the damage prediction calculation would be the ideal solution.

Re: Any way to have a ship cycle its weapons/targe
 

What I did in SE4 Starscape was make it so that the larger ship sizes would increase accuracy, while smaller ships would have lower accuracy. This could work here as well. I like the idea of making larger mounts increase firing rate instead of damage but it doesn't seem very realistic, unless you say that instead of making the weapon bigger they just add more "barrels" in a kind of howitzer or chaingun mechanic.