Is it okay? (None -> Set no target, not work in hangar)

[twilit nimbus]

I used same AI in Lazers, as result they didnt fire while enemy room not destroyed
But the drones from the hangar keep shooting

[arctic sedge]

this will first target destroyed rooms.. then it will target random room if enemy shield >25% .. so in those 2 cases your crafts will be shooting

I don't see anything broken here, just misunderstanding how AI works?

[arctic sedge]

It would be weird if laesrs had different behavior ... can you maybe share a picture of their AI? Is it absolutely the same in terms of targeting?

maybe they weren't powered?

Do you have a replay where you can take pictures of your power/shooting situation?

if you're willing to share a replay with me in-game I could take a look and maybe explain what's happening

[twilit nimbus]

Lazer AI

invite sended

[arctic sedge]

ok, looks the same, so both rooms should be shooting in case there is a destroyed room OR enemy shields >25%

[arctic sedge]

hm, after watching the replay, I can confirm that crafts are acting strange in connection to 'set no target'

• if hangar has a target chosen, crafts will start targeting that room
• later, even if the hangar is set to no target, the crafts keep shooting their last target

so the hangar is doing alright - it properly sets 'no target'. However, the crafts already in flight don't respect that command and keep shooting at the last target that was chosen.

[torpid walrus]

so this design implementation is somewhat intentional atm, as unlike rooms there is no reason for crafts to stop firing at a target

so its currently set to ignore no target commands

What I have to ask here is, for what reason would u want your crafts to stop firing?

I guess I should poll this

[twilit nimbus]

I had an idea to break the room for a moment, and inflict all the instant damage available to the game, defender drones fit this definition.
target - none, need to synchonization of all cannons

[torpid walrus]

Oh actually I just remembered one of the reason why i didn't allow this, its because it would break Bombshells as they need a target to move towards to

i suppose i could exclude Kamikaze crafts from this

[jade gulch]

It's the same reason as rooms-- guaranteeing hull damage by waiting to attack until there's a destroyed room

[jade gulch]

Doesn't this happen anyway with cloak, also?

[torpid walrus]

no because they still have the target with cloak

they just circling around it

[jade gulch]

IDK the backend but it seems plausible to allow them to circle the ship center if no target

[arctic sedge]

To me it would seem reasonable that crafts get finished and start flying even without a target, just circle

From what I saw in his replay the hangar stays at full reload without producing crafts without a target, which is weird.

[torpid walrus]

it would be possible just needs abit more changes than i can do atm so will have to pen that in for later

[arctic sedge]

I would expect the hangar to produce a craft, the craft to fly towards the enemy, but the craft not to shoot

[torpid walrus]

it needs to stay consistent with how it works for other rooms

as ppl may use it for not launching to prevent them getting taken down by AA

[arctic sedge]

Other rooms don't have crafts 🤷

[torpid walrus]

doesn't matter

the rule is activation can't happen without a target

[arctic sedge]

Ok, that's fair

Didn't think about that. In theory it's true, in practice it doesn't seem a good idea due to the long travel time

But it's a valid concern...

I would personally try to produce crafts and then hold their fire

That way they can go to enemy and prepare to fire, but wait until there's a hole and then insta fire to deal maximum hull damage

I think that's the OP's idea too

Anyways. That should be settled now.

[weary lotus]

If I had 5 catas and hold their fire, I can deal 15 damage in almost same time?

[arctic sedge]

well.. except evasion and ECM drones are a thing

but generally, sure, if you can bombard with trackers and ugh ... disable dfh /defensive drones in general... then poof, 15 dmg, it's scary, honestly, to some extent I see how that would be VERY strong

[dry aspen]

Question, with the "Set No Target" AI, will the craft's reload keep going even when Enemy's Cloak is on. One of the best part of Prisms before is getting them to sync up once Enemy cloak goes off and they all fire at the same time. It was the coolest visual ever. It really sucked when the last change killed that.

I'd love if I can set Prism to "Set No Target" during enemy cloak and have their reload advance during cloak again. Literally all other laser weapons does that followng cloak except laser crafts

[torpid walrus]

Reload is not affected by Target AI

[torpid walrus]

i could do that i suppose

actually

the problem is

that was prevented to begin with because it was problematic

tho i don't remember why

[dry aspen]

I think that makes sense to allow syncing of craft attacks after cloak. The main reason to not sync was for Corsair and Firehawks.

[torpid walrus]

ah right

hmm i mean it makes sense but its also a bit of inconsistent behavior if I allow it just for Set No Target

[dry aspen]

So you don't sync all the emp and fire missiles. But, that killed laser syncing for crafts that every other laser weapon room does following cloak

Ideally, Corsair and Firehawks don't want sync their attacks after cloak. But, all other crafts would want to attack right after cloak wears

[weary lotus]

5 catas firing in same tick

[torpid walrus]

my issue with this is that ppl won't know inherently that this is how it works without us explicitly mentioning it somewhere

It would be more consistent and makes more sense if it was reversed like crafts will continue to reload regardless but stops if no target

i mean even then its still not ideal

[dry aspen]

That works for hangars. Only thing is Weapon rooms don't work that way.

If you want consistency between rooms

Although, you can say hangars already act different around enemy cloak with the craft not reloading during it.

[torpid walrus]

@dry aspen actually u could technically already do this with AI by just checking whether current reload is less than max reload then skip the Set No Target check

this way u can wait for crafts to sync up

[dry aspen]

That's exactly what I put in this last 10 minutes exactly

[torpid walrus]

yea so don't really need this change

[dry aspen]

But, does that work during enemy cloak?

[torpid walrus]

what i mean is if ur goal is just to sync then technically just don't set any target until your reload is synced

u SHOULD suffer the delay as a result of cloak

[torpid walrus]

also, sry doesn't Weapon rooms reload regardless of cloak?

it just can't fire

so making the crafts work this way WOULD be consistent

or are u referring to the Set No Target bit

[dry aspen]

Yes, weapons room do reload during enemy cloak. I was seeing if prism and shield busters etc. could reload during enemy cloak

[torpid walrus]

yea so what i'm saying is correct. We should change crafts to function similarly. And if ppl want to sync their crafts then they just need to use Set No Target

[dry aspen]

The whole idea to use Set No target is to sync attacks, but I was thinking it still won't work around enemy cloak if the craft don't reload

[torpid walrus]

hmm but i suppose that does bring back the original problem for Corsairs

[torpid walrus]

u can still sync

u just need to suffer the reload time delay

[dry aspen]

Okay. I still find it a bit weird from gameplay perspective for crafts to not be able to reload themselves during cloak when literally everything else do. Like, for new players it's hard to digest there's a difference

[torpid walrus]

yea but that's more out of necessity due to the corsair problem

it wasn't like that originally

[dry aspen]

Yeah, Prisms were so cool coming out all firing together after cloak originally. Still one of the coolest visual thing I remember seeing from the game. I was hoping maybe "Set No Attack" would allow for reload for Prisms again even under enemy cloak. I will have to give up seeing that again for now

Nowadays, I think DH is mostly either Bombshell spam and/or shieldbusters.

[torpid walrus]

if we could solve the issue with Corsairs in an elegent way then we could change this back

[dry aspen]

Only thing I can think of is if the cloak craft reload pause can somehow only be applied for missiles assault crafts (i.e Corsairs, Firehawks, Catapults)

that is if we can't look at certain actions (i.e. having no target set during enemy cloak) to allow for the craft reload

[torpid walrus]

but that's not an "elegent" solution. Anything that involves making exceptions is an inelegent solution

[dry aspen]

Yeah, I guess unless there is new AI specifically tied to controlling enemy cloaked craft reload speed, I don't see anything elegant. The problem was the solution for crafts to not reload during cloak was mainly targeting Corsairs, Firehawks, and Catapults in the first place.

[dry aspen]

By the way, I was just thinking about it and can't seem to confirm this. Does the defensive crafts reload (from DFH room) gets effected by enemy's cloak too?

[torpid walrus]

no it shouldn't

unless i broke this

[dry aspen]

Okay, thanks. I wasn't sure if all craft reload has to all necessarily be all impacted by enemy cloak

[torpid walrus]

actually i think there may be an issue ehre

i'll need to review the code

[dry aspen]

Please do, because I sure don't think DFH craft should in any way have their reload impacted by enemy cloak. I don't think that needs to be explained

[torpid walrus]

yea i think there might a logic mistake here which ill fix for next update

[dry aspen]

👍 it was already tough imagining how the attack craft's weapon suddenly can't reload when enemy ship cloaks while all other weapon systems seems to reload fine. It's even harder thinking about how defensive crafts suddenly can't reload when the other ship cloaks.

[undone vale]

omg i need to try shield skip on crafts now

[supple pasture]

So in a nutshell, all standard weapons reload during cloak. Setting "no target" allows all weapons to reload without firing, letting them "sync" their firing for large burst dps.

Crafts are an exception, because they're designed to "continuously" fire. They have an exception that causes the craft to not reload during cloak or have the ability to de-target enemies (to maintain sync when firing later).

DFH is being updated to have craft that do not follow this rule since its craft aren't offensive.

Since "firing" for hangars is coupled to two sources of truth (craft firing weapons vs hangar deploying craft), it seems like it might be valuable to add an option to "hold craft fire" or "allow craft fire". This fulfills the goal of always having a target (for the hangar), but also allows players to synchronize firing for crafts (I can imagine shield buster + prism craft would benefit from this if we only wanted to fire the prisms off when shields are down/vice versa).

[supple pasture]

Maybe to make the default behavior more clear, all hangars could also have a “if cloak ->suspend craft reload” command baked in by default?

[undone vale]

Untargeting is already really strong because most crafts have really low shield DPS and fast ammo flieght speed.

The new feature gives them the ability to bypass shields almost completely (when programmed well) and increase the DPS by around 15% ... which is my current estimate value