We all know AI crewmen are bad. Here's what I believe should be done to improve them.
We need more control over AI crewmen. I want some interface to set my own AI presets for each ship (like 3 presets per ship) and I want to be able to add my custom AI crewman on my ship in the same way as with human players.
As for customizing AI I want this:
1) Limiting devices AI crewman should interact with. For example on a Junker I should be able to set AI to interact only with "cellar" guns and main engine and I won't ever see this AI crewman running on a main deck. Or limit AI to right engine, baloon and bottom-right gun on a Mobula and he won't run around our huge deck like a headless chicken. This is the most impornant part of the plan — with just that we will organize somewhat effective co-operation of humans and AI.
2) Setting priorities. And it's not just "armor / baloon / guns", I want behavior patterns like:
- putting down fires on <X part> (X is armor / baloon / gun 1 / gun 2 / gun 3 / main engine / left engine / rignt engine etc);
- repairing <X part> if it's damaged more than by <Y>%;
- rebuilding <X part>;
- shooting the enemy with armor condition: <any / active / inactive> and hull condition: <any / mildly damaged / severely damaged> (hull condition should use the same damage stages as with ship's visual looks);
- destroyng enemy's baloon / engines / guns.
3) Ideally I'd like to set ammo they use (one slot, like a normal engineer), engineer's kit may stay fixed at Spanner / Mallet / Extinguisher.
4) I have mixed feelings about Chem Spray — maybe it would be okay to be able to change Extinguisher for a Spray and add pattern "spraying <X part>" or maybe we should leave Chems for humans after all.
Priority patterns may seem a bit overcomplicated, but I believe, that if we limit AI operations to only 3-4 devices if would work just fine.
As for GUI. We would obviously need a new screen to edit AI presets — it should be done in the same manner as player / ship customizing screens are done. And then setting customized AI in an actual crew should be done similar to loadout recommendations — i.e. click on crewman icon and if the slot is empty you should see a window with all your Custom AI Crewmen. After you set AI Crewman this slot should be considered not empty, i.e. some random player shouldn't be able to connect there.
And the last point is some ethical stuff. I heard an opinion, that if AI is good, the captains will often prefer them to humans and that will harm the community. But I want to throw a couple of counter-agruments:
- Good AI will improve overall expirience, because matchmaking queue will become shorter and we will get less frustration about useless orange weirdos.
- Good AI will force players to learn, so they can at least play better than AI. And in the end community will benefit from this getting less powder monkeys and more competent skyriders. Also using custom AI crewmen may be banned in novice matches, so players would have a place to learn.
And that's it. Tell me your thoughts please.
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