can someone fully explain how the game's kiting algorithm works?

keylocke

kiting is very important in this game. (especially in the battle helper AI) if your ship auto-kites with the default AI, you get a decisive range advantage.

at first i thought i already figured it out : i thought that your lowest ranged or your furthest weapon is the one that dictates your kiting range. (ie : the range of your furthest side missile, or the range of your shortest ranged weapon, compared to your enemy's, would force your ship to either chase or kite, depending on which of the ships had the longer range.)

but it seems that may not be the case. coz i tried making a flat ship with all guns facing forward (no side/back missiles or whatever) all guns (large turrets + missiles) aside from PDs are in front and in a straight line. yet it still tries to chase after the opponent's ship with an "irregular design" (an irregular ship that even has small lasers and electrobolts that have horrible range) instead of kiting away from it. so if "weapon range" was the deciding factor for kiting, then the irregular ship should have been the one chasing instead of kiting.

can someone (maybe walt? praise be thy name) fully explain how the kiting algorithm for the battle helper works?

what exactly is going on? can anyone dispel the current kiting "myths"?

ie :
- is the ship trying to aim at the enemy's closest control room?
-if it is, and the enemy has two control rooms in the same distance, which one does the ship aim for?
-are the guns aiming at different targets independently or do they all try to aim at the same target?
-is weight a deciding factor whether the ship kites or not?
-how fast does the ship have to be relative to ship's weight compared to the opponents?
-etc..

all i really want is an explanation about what are the factors involved for the AI to decide its kiting range.

Walt

The A.I. chooses an attack range and rotation by maximizing the number of weapons (weighted by each's AIFirepowerRating) that have range, firing-arc, and line-of-sight (except for missiles) to the target's bounding circle. There's really nothing more to it than that.

If you're confused about the behavior of certain ships, post the ships here and I can probably explain.

keylocke

Walt If you're confused about the behavior of certain ships, post the ships here and I can probably explain

woot! thanks for the reply. 🙂

ok, here's the ship i made for testing :

image https://i.imgur.com/BVZviGk.png i removed all the other guns to make it easier to test.

then i checked that the furthest side missiles from the front has nearly the same attack range as the 4 large cannons in the middle. so i assume that it will try to reach a range that will "maximize" the number of weapons that will hit the enemy. (ie : it will try to reach large cannon firing range)

however, such is not the case. as it tries to move towards the enemy, the enemy kites backward. so the large cannons rarely get into range. (mostly just shoots in passing, like when it kite orbits and the diagonal motion it takes places it nearer than usual)

this ship is fast and can actually outrun the ship it is trying to chase, and if i manually change the distance and place it closer to the enemy to unleash a full barrage of cannon fire, it is fully capable of doing so.

but that is not what the AI does when it tries to reach the "optimal" range of the cannons, since the enemy is kiting backwards so even if my ship AI fires my cannons, it rarely reaches the opponent at the "optimal" range it places itself in.

meanwhile, the opponent has the range advantage while kiting. so i wanted to reconfigure this ship to reverse the situation. i wanted my ship to "kite" instead of chasing the opponent.

what should i change here?

Walt AIFirepowerRating

btw, where can i see these, and what does it mean? does a gun with higher AIFirepowerRating mean that the AI will prioritize getting that gun into range?

Walt bounding circle

is the bounding circle the circle we see when players select a ship?

Atarlost

Walt The A.I. chooses an attack range and rotation by maximizing the number of weapons (weighted by each's AIFirepowerRating) that have range, firing-arc, and line-of-sight (except for missiles) to the target's bounding circle. There's really nothing more to it than that.

If you're confused about the behavior of certain ships, post the ships here and I can probably explain.

Cerberus vs Cerberus. After they pull back to their desired range after crashing into each other they will never close to electrobolt range in spite of both having electrobolts that could fire if they were closer. Other large ships have similar issues, but the Cerberus is one I don't have to post.

keylocke

Walt If you're confused about the behavior of certain ships, post the ships here and I can probably explain.

ok, i tested it out again against this ship : Manta something (i keep forgetting, my bad). the opposing ship
image https://i.imgur.com/rMA3JL1.png
the ship below is the one i used for testing : ArcraiserMkI (this ship still tries to chase the enemy instead of kite) it has similar weight and price range as the opposing ship. (this one has 8 side missiles, the same amount of missiles as the opposing ship)
image https://i.imgur.com/JO4KVrY.png
i modified that ship and simply added another set of side missile modules. this is ArcraiserMkII (it also has similar weight and price range as the opposing ship. (this one has 12 side missiles)
image https://i.imgur.com/I8iRP6A.png
this ship actually kites against the manta ship, but i still have absolutely no idea why.

i mean, by adding another set of side missiles, shouldn't it be the other way around? (the ship should chase instead of kite) coz the new set of missiles would mean that the furthest missiles would have a shorter range compared to the missiles that are closer to the front?

also, i counted the number of side missiles for ArcraiserMkII (12 missiles, 16 large cannons) compared to my ArcraiserMkI (8 missiles, 16 large cannons). does this have something to do with the AIFirepowerRating? ie : having 12 missiles would make my missiles have a higher AIFirepowerRating compared to my large cannon's AIFirepowerRating? i assume that missiles have more "weighted" value than large cannons, is this why it starts to prioritize maintaining missile range instead?

and since ArcraiserMKII has 12 missiles compared to the opposing manta ship's 8 missiles, does this also factor in which ship kites or chase?

both of my ships still win, but ArcraiserMkII wins a LOT faster because it kites and receives range advantage, allowing majority of its large cannon shots to actually hit the opposing ship. compared to ArcraiserMkI which chases the enemy and mostly have to rely on the opposing ship's thrusters failing, to get a lucky shot to hit.

so this AI kiting mechanic is still very confusing. 🙁

Walt

Can you please post the ship you're testing against, too?

keylocke btw, where can i see these

In the .txt files in the Data folder.

keylocke does a gun with higher AIFirepowerRating mean that the AI will prioritize getting that gun into range?

Basically. It tries to get the highest total AIFirepowerRating it can.

keylocke is the bounding circle the circle we see when players select a ship?

More or less. It's actual radius is 1 tile smaller than what you see.

Mc2

Ha, bounding cicrle is reason why so many battles ends like this:

image https://i.imgur.com/Vlm51Hk.png

this means, that missile launcher is obligatory equipment, because ship with guns only, is unable to finish already death oponent.

keylocke I think, that create uniwersal kitter is not possible, because game compare both ships and then it decide who will be kiter and who will be perusading.
Like your testing ship, i came with tries to understand how the game behave with this:

image https://i.imgur.com/s6q0aFB.png

image https://i.imgur.com/glUgc1T.png

By the way, Manta ship was done only for the look purpose, but i tried it to other ships just in case and find out that it is doing so well so instead of understanding completely the strange behawiour, i just keep design only make it stronger, and when it stop behave like i want it, then i cam step back and try other way, horibly slow, but working designing way.

keylocke

Walt Can you please post the ship you're testing against, too?

ah, mostly just random "irregular" shaped ships i found in the forum, like this one. (since i mostly fought against other box ships)

image https://i.imgur.com/az8zErl.png

if i place all the guns back in my ship, my ship still wins, but it takes a prolonged time doing so, compared to if i just manually adjust the distance of my ship and park it up close to unleash a full barrage of cannon fire. (since my ship is modular, so i can just add/remove "modules" to match the enemy ship's price range)

anyways, i think this mantaray was one of Mc2's ships, and despite having many guns in its arsenal that has various ranges, it seems to be acting primarily like a missile kiter.

which is kinda strange since i tried to match his 4 large cannons/4 missiles using a straight front line. (which means my missiles should have further range than his, so my ship should be the one kiting.) especially since after the first barrage, his two foremost large cannons tend to get destroyed in the initial barrage.

edit : iirc, that "polon" ship that won that "tourney" some time ago also had this curved frontal shape. does it have something to do with the firing arcs of the guns? ie : since some of the guns on the side of the curve has a shorter range than the guns on the apex of the curve, the ship tries to get closer to its target and allows the guns in the apex to shoot since it would be in firing range most of the time (even if enemy tries to kite backwards).

edit 2 : also, what is the AI aiming priority? is the AI aiming randomly at enemy ship's modules or do they have specific priorities? ie : i often find my ship trying to shoot at the enemy's missile modules at the edges of his frontal curve. with my ship AI, kiting left and right, aiming from left missile modules, then switching to right missile modules, etc.. instead of aiming at the apex of the enemy's curved ship which is a lot closer.

Atarlost

These also seem to prefer to stay at missile range in spite of having a wide variety of weapons.

image https://i.imgur.com/ytm7bj6.png
image https://i.imgur.com/upwgMY4.png

Instead they circle each other. It's possible this extreme case is a problem with diagonal ships (they use all engines with a tangential thrust component instead of the engines pointing towards the location they're trying to get to).

But this also stays at missile range (in a mirror match) in spite of having more large cannons and being decidedly not diagonal.

image https://i.imgur.com/VjI205g.png

keylocke

Mc2 yea, but i couldn't find "polon" ship that won the tourney. and i recalled that your manta ship had similar frontal arc. so i'm trying to figure out if this has anything to do with kiting. ie : the AI tries to get the cannons further back of the arc, into range of the enemy kiter. the back cannons rarely get in range but the cannons in the apex of the arc will often be in range thanks to the AI's attempt to get the back cannons in range.

at least, that was one of the theories/myths i was having about kiting.

dieaready

One more thing that is wonky about AI is that it keeps on deciding to change the position of attack every 5s or so. While this is fine with small fighters, it causes a lot of issues with larger ships, especially those using ion beams or those which are especially slow as they never get into position before it changes, leading to the ship forever circling around the enemy ship. I'd recommend that they only change attack position every 10-20s after they get into position, or if they are unable to get into position within 30s, then it would try a different position.

Atarlost

dieaready One more thing that is wonky about AI is that it keeps on deciding to change the position of attack every 5s or so. While this is fine with small fighters, it causes a lot of issues with larger ships, especially those using ion beams or those which are especially slow as they never get into position before it changes, leading to the ship forever circling around the enemy ship. I'd recommend that they only change attack position every 10-20s after they get into position, or if they are unable to get into position within 30s, then it would try a different position.

Setting a position rather than just a distance and orientation is so rarely helpful that the AI should not do it at all except in fleets, and even there it's probably a bad idea against a human since it can't predict which ship a human will attack. The only cases I've found for it outside of taking apart something with all its turning thrusters destroyed involve exploiting the AI's own facing changes and would not work on a human.

keylocke

dieaready

yea, that part is strange. my ship goes back and forth, switching targets from left side to right side and vice versa.
this was actually relatively helpful. coz when my ship tries to switch targets, it usually takes a diagonal path which sometimes take it close enough to unleash a volley of cannon fire (although shots rarely hit kiting opponent anyway). unlike if it was only in a stationary and unable to get its cannons in range of the kiting opponent.

Mc2

keylocke i ended with cannons in the line, and launchers at the end of ship, this made ship kitting most of the time in the rocket range, but sometimes wild manuevering brig opponent to the cannon fire range, that was my key to win 😃
Now, with new AI and mulitiplayer, discusion will continue when we find out how the AI behave now.

Mc2

keylocke It is really confusing.
this is why is so hard to design universal ship capable to beat most of opponenets. and why it is so easy to design one purpose ship which is capable of beating jus one opponentl.

keylocke

Mc2 yea, it's frustratingly confusing. however, there must be some way to figure out your ship's "kiting ratio".

i assume kiting ratio is a combination of several factors, like weighted firepower/range/speed of your ship compared to the opponent's ship. which means that if both of your ship has the same price range, the ship that has a higher "kiting ratio" will likely to be the one that kites. which is why i think that it IS possible to create a "universal kiter" for ships within the same price range, as long as you can create a ship design with a higher "kiting ratio". problem is, i'm still confused how to figure out my ship's "kiting ratio". (i still don't even know where to find the AIFirepowerRating for each weapon that walt was talking about)

anyways. i tested out my arcraisers against tephra's badass missile nuker.
image https://i.imgur.com/L8sEK2x.png
and i found that my arc shaped front design is terrible against large scale missile salvos, coz the arc shape blocks the view of PDs, so it basically splits the PD frontal coverage into two.

tephra's missile kiting ship is the strongest missile nuker i found so far. i call it a "nuker" coz it has so much missile modules crammed up which makes its initial salvo crazy devastating. however, the crammed missile design tend to have horrible reload times, so as long as your ship is lucky enough to survive the initial salvo with enough PDs still active, then you'll probably be fine. which is why tephra's missile nuker is a good ship for testing if your defenses can actually survive a missile onslaught. (load both ships in battle helper, fight, unleash initial barrage, if your ship survives, then cool; if not, back to drawing board. PDs and missiles are too random)

since i occasionally get badly damaged by tephra's ship's initial salvo, i'm actually thinking about scrapping the arc shape of my ship. but doing that would probably affect my ship's kiting. 🙁

Mc2

keylocke With this ship I complained to Walt, i have several ship swhich shoot of this middle part(finger) but because the circle, ship does not aproach closer and do not finish him 😃

If you build very very large kitter, with extremly high "kiting ratio", then answer will be one launcher and 150 backward thrusters, im sure that the smaller one will be kitting.

keylocke

Mc2 If you build very very large kitter, with extremly high "kiting ratio", then answer will be one launcher and 150 backward thrusters, im sure that the smaller one will be kitting.

well kiting is just part of the equation to win, since kiting is just meant to provide your ship with the range advantage for your large cannons against enemy cannon fire, so your ship still needs to have enough firepower to break enemy defenses. kiting alone is not enough.

heck, my pure missile kiters have a tendency to kite against mixed-gun ships, but when fighting against other pure missile kiters, then it doesn't really matter who kites or chase. it only matters who has more missiles/PDs and who has faster reload speed. so pure missile kiters doesn't have problems about kiting.

though the problem with pure missile kiters is that it takes a really long time to win, so it's a long and boring fight. me no likey.

mixed-gun ships with large cannons on the other hand is where figuring out how kiting AI works, seem to be the most important.

Mc2

keylocke That is corect, kiting most matters in cannon , but even misile x misile ships kiting is advantage, your rockets are faster at enemy, so it means he has less time to shoot them by PD and this counts as well.

By the way, kitting i find very borring to ( but i have enough space to play more battles at the same time :
https://forum.cosmoteer.net/d/2934-walt-the-public-enemy-d/8)
but be honest, i rather have boring winning ship which kite then the loosing one 😃