Tremendously stupid AI

[Gott365]

So, I got ganked by pirates, LGV Refit and Requinn, all fine with that. Had good upwind position, Requinn had to join later, no problem. Had three traders, one at my left side a little behind me, two at my right, a little infront. I ordered my traders to demast and chained the Refit in my Inger to about 70%. After that, I ordered them to follow me, since I wanted to escape with the wind. The two traders at my right would just set sail and more or less keep their relative position, the one on the left made something that stupid, that it caused me to write this.

My Inger was downwind from the AI´s perspective, so no excuses. And when I gave the "follow me" order, we sailed side by side, about 200m away, the Refit behind enough to not get in the way.

It turned *away* from me, *through* the wind, and *to* the Refit, which would then get close and cut the trader off of me.

I think this is what AI thought: "Noone has ever done that, noone has EVER done that in the history of NA!" Or simply: "yolo."

This is just another evidence of the insanely stupid AI, and you have to admit that. I think we can agree on that: Either the devs need to make the AI much more intelligent (fixing targeting and pathing logic e.g.) or give the players something a little more solid to command the AI.

For the later, I´d suggest something like a "Move there" option for the in fight map menu, so that AI just goes there. No what´s, no if´s, just simply moves the bowsprit in the direction, and sets sail, disregarding wind and obstacles all along. *Maybe* it should try to dodge something in its way, but from what I saw, better don´t give the AI any room to think itself.

I know that NA is more or less supposed to be a simulation, but a guy, with a long pole and a pennant attached onto it waving to a direction, should be easy enough to imagine.

 

As always, good winds gentlemen, o7

Edited August 27, 2018 by Gott365

[Thonys]

14 minutes ago, Gott365 said:

So, I got ganked by pirates, LGV Refit and Requinn, all fine with that. Had good upwind position, Requinn had to join later, no problem. Had three traders, one at my left side a little behind me, two at my right, a little infront. I ordered my traders to demast and chained the Refit in my Inger to about 70%. After that, I ordered them to follow me, since I wanted to escape with the wind. The two traders at my right would just set sail and more or less keep their relative position, the one on the left made something that stupid, that it caused me to write this.

My Inger was downwind from the AI´s perspective, so no excuses. And when I gave the "follow me" order, we sailed side by side, about 200m away, the Refit behind enough to not get in the way.

It turned *away* from me, *through* the wind, and *to* the Refit, which would then get close and cut the trader off of me.

I think this is what AI thought: "Noone has ever done that, noone has EVER done that in the history of NA!" Or simply: "yolo."

This is just another evidence of the insanely stupid AI, and you have to admit that. I think we can agree on that: Either the devs need to make the AI much more intelligent (fixing targeting and pathing logic e.g.) or give the players something a little more solid to command the AI.

For the later, I´d suggest something like a "Move there" option for the in fight map menu, so that AI just goes there. No what´s, no if´s, just simply moves the bowsprit in the direction, and sets sail, disregarding wind and obstacles all along. *Maybe* it should try to dodge something in its way, but from what I saw, better don´t give the AI any room to think itself.

I know that NA is more or less supposed to be a simulation, but a guy, with a long pole and a pennant attached onto it waving to a direction, should be easy enough to imagine.

 

As always, good winds gentlemen, o7

we need better armed traders with good guns like the  zevene proven

that will keep the pirates away

even back i those days they asked for more armed traders, here in NA we all do the same , but the  present admiralty seems deaf

 

Edited August 27, 2018 by Thonys

[Angus MacDuff]

I feel your pain.  I got jumped by a player several weeks ago.  I had my LGV Refit and two LGVs in fleet.  I told the LGVs to escape and I led the Player and his 5th Rate away.  I had the speed on him and he followed me...no problems, right?  Wrong!  The idiot AIs ran themselves aground right beside a fort (from another nation).  Eventually, one of my AIs escaped, but the other was sunks by the fort.  Idiots.  Yes, I agree, we should be able to give our bots some more direction.  At the very least, if you tell them to run, they should avoid all threats.

[Gott365]

Quote

we need better armed traders with good guns

That aswell, but my point firstly was to fix the AI ^^

Buffing Indiaman and LGV would be nice, though. I mean, the Indiamen were supposed to sail from Europe to the West Indies or to the Caribbean and back. They therefore were actually well armed and armoured, so that they single handedly could fight off attacks. The ingame traders are far away from that, only matching the numbers in crew.

Edited August 27, 2018 by Gott365

[Aster]

#Indiaman Refit

[Hethwill]

21 minutes ago, Gott365 said:

therefore were actually well armed and armoured

Apart from repurposed frigates and 64/74 into "indiamans" - which you can already do in game by using them as cargo haulers ( a 74 would be downgraded to 40 - 50 guns for hold space IRL) can you link some examples that represent exactly that ? A hardy and heavily armed purpose build indiaman ?

Thanks a ton. Would be great to have hands on approach with plans and data.

[Angus MacDuff]

1 minute ago, Hethwill the Harmless said:

Apart from repurposed frigates and 64/74 into "indiamans" - which you can already do in game by using them as cargo haulers ( a 74 would be downgraded to 40 - 50 guns for hold space ) can you link some examples that represent exactly that ? A hardy and heavily armed purpose build indiaman ?

Thanks a ton. Would be great to have hands on approach with plans and data.

I wish that had something to do with the OP

[Hethwill]

3 minutes ago, Oberon74 said:

I wish that had something to do with the OP

Was off topic regarding a nit pick. I am very interested in it.

Regarding AI, yeah, they are as silly as the AI we farm, same brains. Some players though got excellent at using them, really good. ^But they are dedicated fleet traders full time and had to learn how to best use the dedicated trader tools.

Maybe distance from player until AI stops could be reduced ? That's a big issue for them to decide where to turn.

[Archaos]

I think we all know that the AI are stupid, but soon it will not make any difference even if they do escape because if the attacker gets you you will just respawn in the OW in one of your fleet traders ready to be tagged again.

Regarding comments about better armed trader ships I think the reality of it is that the Indiaman was quite well armed for the opposition she was likely to face. The difference in game is that we have to constantly face other nations warships in traders because all nations are always at war with each other, where in reality wars were intermittent and the main threat faced was from pirates who did not sail large warships.

[Charles Edward Stuart]

2 hours ago, Gott365 said:

[...] give the players something a little more solid to command the AI.

For the later, I´d suggest something like a "Move there" option for the in fight map menu, so that AI just goes there. No what´s, no if´s, just simply moves the bowsprit in the direction, and sets sail, disregarding wind and obstacles all along. *Maybe* it should try to dodge something in its way, but from what I saw, better don´t give the AI any room to think itself.

It sounds like we could use something along the lines of the Total War unit moving mechanics. Left Click our AI ship on the map and Right Click where we need it to go.

[Gott365]

DISCLAIMER: OFF TOPIC :)

15 hours ago, Hethwill the Harmless said:

Apart from repurposed frigates and 64/74 into "indiamans" - which you can already do in game by using them as cargo haulers ( a 74 would be downgraded to 40 - 50 guns for hold space IRL) can you link some examples that represent exactly that ? A hardy and heavily armed purpose build indiaman ?

Thanks a ton. Would be great to have hands on approach with plans and data.

Best example would be @Thonys idea, I guess. Apart from that you could see the spanish Galleons as predecessor of the Indiamans (what is the correct plural on that lol), and since Wapen and Inger are rather "old" ships, maybe we could get one of those later built and trade-fitted Galleons aswell, e.g. later Manila-Galleons.

 

Now that I searched for some time, it´s actually rather difficult to find ships like these...but I found some: 

HMS Madras (1795, 56gun armed transport, originally built as East Indiaman with 1400ish tonnage), 

HMS Weymouth (1795, same story as above, 28x18pdrs, 28x32pdr carros)

and some more ships like these. I mainly found those british ships, but I guess there are some more of different nations aswell... hope that´s enough at a first glance to satisfy your curiosity :D

[Rabman]

16 hours ago, Coraline Vodka said:

That's just indiaman with poods

But those swivels though, needs meh swivels

[van Veen]

19 hours ago, Gott365 said:

For the later, I´d suggest something like a "Move there" option for the in fight map menu, so that AI just goes there. No what´s, no if´s, just simply moves the bowsprit in the direction, and sets sail, disregarding wind and obstacles all along.

Agreed. But instead of "Move there" I'd suggest to set the target course of the AI. Then it turns to that course and keeps it. Simple as that. Turns should be made with least difference in degrees. If you want the AI to turn by 270° you could assign an intermediate course and when that is achieved, update again. This way you can even control the turn direction of AI.