Which guns and ships for Bots?

[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]

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.

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.

[Siracs]

I took some time in the practice mode. These test were made with stationary and moving targets. F7 and F8 in practice mode. The own ship was standig still.

Bots seem to be able to look deeper into clouds than human players.

The Heavy Guns

Hellhound Heavy Twin Carronade
Stationary target: 93,33%
Moving target:     56,67%

Lumberjack Heavy Mortar
Stationary target: 85,56%
Moving target:     41,11%

Manticore Heavy Hwacha
The AI shoots the complete clip of 20 rockets in one or two seconds. The closer the target, the more rockets hit. The stationary targets were further away than most of the moving ones. In this short test, the the AI hit at least one missle of any volley fired.
Stationary target: 37,33% missles hit (farer away)
Moving target:     65,00% missles hit (closer)

Minotaur Heavy Cannon
This is primary a utility weapon. The target ist pushed away and forced into a spin if hit far away from the mass center. Maybe usable in a sniper galleon.
Stationary target:  76,67%   
Moving target:      41,11%

Typhon Heavy Flak Cannon
Stationary target:  76,67%   
Moving target:      36,67%

I prefer these two heavy weapons for bots:

• Hellhound Heavy Twin Carronade
• Manticore Heavy Hwacha

The Light Guns

• The AI won't use the Beacon Flare Gun or the Phobos Light Mine Launcher.
• The AI will fire the Javelin Light Harpoon Gun but will put it to no good use in the moment considering the special effect.

Artemis Light Rocket Launcher
Stationary target:  95,00%   
Moving target:        28,33%

Banshee Light Rocket Carousel
The AI seems to have problems to hit targets a little bit above gun level.
Stationary target:  67,50   %   
Moving target:        45,00 %

Barking Dog Light Carronade
Stationary target:  95,33 %   
Moving target:        81,00 %

Dragon Tongue Light Flamethrower   
Stationary target:  circa 95%      
Moving target:        circa 80 - 90%

Echidna Light Flak Cannon    
Stationary target:  56,67 %   
Moving target:        48,89 %

Hades Light Cannon
Stationary target:  77,50   %   
Moving target:        55,00 %

Mercury Field Gun
Stationary target:  63,33   %   
Moving target:        36,67 %

Scylla Double-Barreled Mortar
Stationary target:  67,22   %   
Moving target:        46,11 %
    
Whirlwind Light Gatling Gun
Stationary target:  circa 90%      
Moving target:        circa 70 - 80%

I prefer these three light weapons for bots:

• Dragon Tongue Light Flamethrower
• Barking Dog Light Carronade
• Whirlwind Light Gatling Gun

The test I made is far from perfect. But it should only give me a slight idea, what might work and what not.

What could be done better?

• I have noted down 15 clips of each gun with imobile target and 15 with moving target. This number is quite small. In a scientific experiment you would try to get a bigger group.
• The range is not considered in this test. For example the Manticore Heavy Hwacha is extreme range dependend. To consinder that, you would need the help of a friend, who position his ship at given ranges.
• The moving targets were slowly drawing circles around my ship. A human captain would try to evade and fly irational.
• My ship was standing still. All this observations should be made during typical manouvers.

[Daft Loon]

Some interesting results there.

The mercury and artemis are a bit odd, for a player shooting it is normally the movement of the firing ship that throws out aim rather than the target moving.

The lumberjack may actually have some potential since although 40% accuracy is bad it only needs 50% with standard rounds to pop a balloon dropping to 33% unless they fully repair it. It might suffer at longer ranges though with the target dummies having only the 1 short range option for spawning them.

Something like the voice commands would be nice, picking a ship, an orientation and a range to spawn it at for target practice.

[Siracs]

[...] The lumberjack may actually have some potential since although 40% accuracy is bad it only needs 50% with standard rounds to pop a balloon dropping to 33% unless they fully repair it. It might suffer at longer ranges though with the target dummies having only the 1 short range option for spawning them.

In my impression the bots can handle the Hellhound Heavy Twin Carronade much better. It downs the test targets much faster too.

Something like the voice commands would be nice, picking a ship, an orientation and a range to spawn it at for target practice.

That would be totaly great.

I guess the bots will learn a lot in the next month. That PvE adventure mode needs better bots and furthermore, bots with some kind of "typical" behavior.

[Daft Loon]

I guess the bots will learn a lot in the next month. That PvE adventure mode needs better bots and furthermore, bots with some kind of "typical" behavior.

My understanding of various things the devs have said is that the AI for co-op mode is quite different to the AI used as crew substitutes. I think for repair and shooting purposes this ships will 'pretend' to have crew with an algorithm that dictates how soon a part can be repaired, how the guns can shoot etc rather than a directly simulated crew on each ship. The piloting aspect of the AI is of course completely new as well.

[Kamoba]

I guess the bots will learn a lot in the next month. That PvE adventure mode needs better bots and furthermore, bots with some kind of "typical" behavior.

My understanding of various things the devs have said is that the AI for co-op mode is quite different to the AI used as crew substitutes. I think for repair and shooting purposes this ships will 'pretend' to have crew with an algorithm that dictates how soon a part can be repaired, how the guns can shoot etc rather than a directly simulated crew on each ship. The piloting aspect of the AI is of course completely new as well.

Pretty much this.
The first and foremost thing to keep in mine with Skirmish mode AI is, they're there as a last resort. They have been designed to be flawed so that a real player should be a better option than an AI. This is to encourage team play and player to player interactions.
So although there are ways, and weapons which the AI can perform okay in, at the end of the day a crew of players should always be first choice, and as such AI substitutes will always be less efficient. So no AI buffs.

[Siracs]

I would asume that the bots will maybe change their behavior, shoot some guns better or worse. Learn maybe utility guns etc.

The development of the new bots for the adventure mode is in progress and I would be astonished, if there will be no backports in some way or another.

The numbers I found out testing, maybe change in the next builds of the game.

It's good bots are not planed to outperform humans. 

[HamsterIV]

Great job on the research.

Even though bots have a high hit rate with the Gatling gun they don't focus on shooting the hull, so many of those bullets are wasted against the balloon.  This can be somewhat negated by flying beneath the target so the hull represents a greater percentage of the target area. Likewise you can force the AI to target the balloon with carronade by flying above the enemy's hull.

When flying with just AI, I try and take fool proof weapons like the manticore, banshee, or flamethower. This way it doesn't matter what you it or how you time hull breaks. Ideally I try and get one player to be gunner and leave the AI to repair duty. I am pretty sure muse programmed the AI to perform sub optimally to encourage social play.

[Kamoba]

AI light carronade shooting was fixed recently, so that the AI prioritises balloon, so a light carronade is now useable by AI, though often times a player will pop a balloon faster, its not as bad as it was.
However with this change also came a.change in the AI Gatling behavior, an ai shooting Gatling will sometimes try to disable components (Main engine, turning engines etc) if the ship os steady and the shot os good, which means longer time before hull break, a real pain when flying a gat banshee squid and holding positions on enemy blind spots..

Personally I have most effective AI use on Squid with a rear mine launcher or flare to keep them shooting the front and side guns.

AI make terrible ranged gunners, they have a max distance for targeting, so you can have a mercury and a target at 1k distance and the AI will not shoot, thus making sniping ineffective.

So although they can do some stuff, for diverse gameplay real players still hold trumps, its better to get a crew of humans.