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Which guns and ships for Bots?

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Siracs:
Hello folks,

I'am just learning the ropes, but I'am asking me the following questions:

Which guns work best with AI gunners?

Which ships work best with AI gunners and engineers and only a human captain?

Daft Loon:
I'm not 100% on what works well but some things that fail horribly:
-Mobula - the AI will waste all their time running the full width of the ship only to run back when something behind them gets damaged
-Gatling - the AI seems to have been directly coded to be bad at gatling
-Heavy Carronade - they seem to fail at targeting the balloon
-Mine launcher or flare gun - the AI will never fire these guns (probably for the best), this can be used to dictate what guns they will fire by placing mines or flares on guns they shouldn't fire.

Some things that seem to work well for me
-Light Carronade - the AI will sometimes load heavy clip (the default ammo choice) and disable guns and engines with it better than many players.
-Goldfish - with no vital need for the engineers to take certain areas it copes well enough with AI crew and even better if you can get just 1 human crew to act as gunner (or 'gunner' with an engineer loadout)
-Squid - unlike many human crew (myself included sometimes) the AI won't panic and get confused on the squid. Its also the most pilot oriented ship.
-Junker - similar to the goldfish

Some notes
- F2 will set all AI to shooting, they will completely ignore repairs, F3 does the reverse with all repairs no shooting, F1 restores default behavior. If you work out a loadout that works well by focusing fire for a time and then focusing repair this can work well.
- The AI gunner was removed but 1 of the 3 engineers seems to retain the behavior to some extent, favoring shooting while the other 2 repair. Getting the 2nd or 3rd to shoot without using F2 usually requires the ship to have very little damage.
-If the AI is shooting it has a target, even if you can't see anything the enemy is where the shots are going give or take a few hundred meters of inaccuracy.

Dementio:
AIs do shoot balloons with Carronades, but also tend to try to snipe components with them, since they have shatter damage. If you need them to shoot the balloon immediately, you can position yourself so they have arc only on the balloon, and then they will shoot that.

AIs are bad with adjusting to ship movement. You know, when you turn your ship to the left and sombody shoots a gun while this turn happens, the gun's projectile goes more left than what the reticle shows? AI's aiming system assumes the ship to not move at all, when it does they miss.

On certain ships you can change the AI behaviour. They don't shoot Flare guns and Mine Launchers, so if you have a Pyramidion with these guns on the side and set them to attack, two AI will shoot only the front guns, while the 3rd one repairs the ship, because he has no gun to shoot with. That also works with a Squid, maybe Mobula and Spire too, but don't blame me if it goes wrong for you.

Since AI is good with aiming as long as the ship doesn't move too much, you could probably put an Artemis on your ship and stand still when you want the AI to shoot out enemy guns. Beware, I haven't tested the effectiveness of that either.

You can give the AI a target to prioritise if you use your "captain mark" on an enemy ship (default key: "B", only works if you are the actual captain of the ship). It basically tells people (and AI) what the captain wants the crew to shoot at, looks similar to spotting somebody with a spyglass, but is not similar in functionality. But watch out, once the mark disappears, because it doesn't stay on the enemy ship forever, the AI may lose interest and shoot what it thinks to be a higher prioritised target, so you may have to "captain mark" the enemy repeatedly.

Daft Loon:

--- Quote from: Dementio on August 24, 2015, 10:21:19 pm ---On certain ships you can change the AI behaviour. They don't shoot Flare guns and Mine Launchers, so if you have a Pyramidion with these guns on the side and set them to attack, two AI will shoot only the front guns, while the 3rd one repairs the ship, because he has no gun to shoot with. That also works with a Squid, maybe Mobula and Spire too, but don't blame me if it goes wrong for you.

--- End quote ---
Didn't know that one myself, I'd assumed the 3rd would just do nothing.

Another thing is to bring a spyglass if at all possible, marking ships for your allies and to keep track of them behind your balloon etc is vital, normally you have 3 crew with no better pilot tool to bring than spyglass but with a full AI crew it is worth the loss of 1 other option.

BlackenedPies:
All AI works on pyra, squid, and junker with specific loadouts. They work well on hwatcha loadouts at close range if you get a good disable. They don't work on mobula and I don't recommend them on galleon. Beware of flamethrowers! They'll overwhelm you.

The first key to a good AI ship is flares. With the possible exception of junker, every ship needs atleast one flare (pyra needs two). Flares serve two proposes besides letting you light up clouds: herding AI to the right guns and on some ships allowing one repair engi on F2. On pyra, squid, or fish when you press F2 two will shoot and one will repair.

Press F3 until you're ready to engage. Bring kerosene, claw, and hydro and use them constantly. If an AI is on a damaged gun quickly press F3 F2 for the AI to repair and get back on. Use the captain target B key to tell AI what to shoot. They will only follow this order if the gun they're on can shoot it, otherwise they'll target freely. If you want the AI to switch guns and target a new ship: captain target (B) and press F3 F2.

AI are excellent on mortar and good enough on carronade, hades, flak, banshee, and flamethrower. They're mediocre on gat and poor on merc and artemis. They're great on hwatcha at mid-close range but I don't recommend them on other heavy guns. AI aim on a vector system so they won't miss if everyone continues at the same speed and direction. Try to stay still.

If you're comfortable on squid I recommend trying a carro/flame squid. I had a 43 match win streak in an all AI double flame squid and double carro or carro flame work well to keep balloon disabled. Gat banshee is great against pyras. Burn your tools and don't get hit by hwatcha.

AI pyra works with 2 side flares and lots of burning. Be careful of stronger ships and rely on brute force. Double Hades works well against ranged spires and most standard pyra loadouts work well enough. Well timed hydro is essential.

Junker can be an excellent AI ship with trifecta and practice. You want to pick guns where you can point 3 at the enemy at a time. You'll generally go all attack or full repair. Use your big balloon as a shield if you need to avoid fire. Maneuver around under them and hydro F2. Bring pipe wrench to repair your balloon (don't forget!).

Don't leave your AI on attack when there's nothing to shoot and don't leave them on repair too long for them to get to their guns. F1 is a good command and F3 if they're near a damaged component then F2. Don't let an AI shoot a damaged gun and immediately F3 F2.

Burn burn burn and F3 F2.

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