Option to disable ship collision avoidance AI

Dalas120

Heard this suggestion from a guy I was playing with yesterday. The collision avoidance AI is usually great to have, but sometimes it can cause a lot of trouble. For example, a tiny fighter can severely disrupt the movement of a giant capital ship, because the capital ship will keep trying to move around the fighter instead of pushing it aside. This can be game-deciding when the capital ship is trying to maneuver against other large ships in battle. Similarly, collision avoidance can make it difficult to coordinate a fighter swarm, because they keep trying to go around eachother, ignoring manual commands to smash together and move forward.

I know there are planned improvements for the collision avoidance AI on the roadmap, but even after those are implemented it would be nice to have an option (either per-ship or in global settings) to disable it entirely. Sometimes it can be very helpful to smash into ships instead of moving around them.

CGDW

I would like this option too, the collission avoidance stuff only ever bothers me, for the exact same reasons you mentioned.

SpaceCat

I also think there shoudl be a on/off switch for collision avoidance.

It does not really work tho in the first place, ships still collide constantly!
Mostly only causes ships to disobey orders and get stuck.
That strange behaviour when ships fire all their thrusters at half power and hardly move.

Walt

SpaceCat It does not really work tho in the first place, ships still collide constantly!
Mostly only causes ships to disobey orders and get stuck.

Somewhat perversely, this is why I haven't yet added the option to turn off collision avoidance -- if I add the option, you all will just turn it off and stop complaining about it and then it'll never improve. Whereas if you have to live with it, you'll keep complaining about it and I'll keep improving it.

I'll add the option to turn it off once it's actually working well and you only want to turn it off for specific situations, not because it's generally bad.

ja7833

I think we need ramming implemented to fully appreciate all the aspects of collision avoidance

https://trello.com/c/iXUu6OJ6

Atarlost

I'm not sure what we gain by having an option to not disable collision avoidance AI. It doesn't do what it's supposed to but completely ruins formations.

SpaceCat

Walt I like how open to criticism you are!

Mc2

Walt I do complain about that 😃 now fleet with sumo style ship with 2 fighters more than very often punch me out of circle, ship do not obey any order to circle sumo ship, due to possible collision with small fighter on sides and just go backwards to its destruction, that is really annoying 😃

SpaceCat

Walt Somewhat perversely

I understand that someone has to test collision avoidance.
But it kills tactical gameplay in many cases, especially multi ship battles.

Move order -> ship fires all thrusters at ~ 50% -> no movement at all.

In cases where you have a far distance destination and are up to ludicrous speed already the collusion avoidence drops out and you can nicely ram ships or blaze through swarms, bumping ships, whirling them around and escape again - preparing for another fly by, or rather fly through, attack.

It is SOOO much more fun without collision avoidance.

😉

(PS.:especially with new thrusters we will want to experiment with move orders more - so pls: ingame on/off option so that ships follow orders blindly.)

Atarlost

Walt I'll add the option to turn it off once it's actually working well and you only want to turn it off for specific situations, not because it's generally bad.

The default state will always be to not want collision avoidance on player ships because it takes control away. Collision avoidance is only useful for ships that would otherwise lock together and is even then only really needed for AI controlled ships that can't be disentangled by a human.

SpaceCat

Latest tacitcs seem to be: getting close with a heavy armored ship so that collision avoidance kicks in and you cannot move at all - all thrusters at ~50%.

Kills the game ...

Mc2

SpaceCat We have to build ships which are made just to go forward , till collision avoidance system will be not breaking any nice maneuvering 😃

nop

Q: Under what conditions does a ship's navigator decide to move around an object rather than through it?

Walt: If you order your ship to move directly on top of another ship, that'll disable collision avoidance and it won't try to move around. Otherwise, it will try to avoid any friendly ship that has both crew and a control room, as well as any ship that is at least 25% the mass of itself.

Normally when being rammed, you set your ship's motion relative to the ramming ship to make sure collision avoidance doesn't prevent pushing, strafing or rotation. When two enemy ships are ramming, you are stuck because you can only set a relative destination to one of them while the other keeps you in collision-lock (most notably affecting rotation). The two ships can use their relative moves to push you wherever they want, as long as they aren't running into each other. It might be possible to escape a collision-lock without shooting your way out, but it would be a pretty esoteric skill.

From Walt's description splitting/multi-ships have advantage over singular starships at the ramming game around 2:1 or 3:1 numbers and reasonable density. Railgun ships are slightly more valuable at collision-lock because of their higher mass.