EVE General Discussion

NPCs now hate logi ships as much as pvp fleets do.

If the sleeper AI is anything to go by, they'll first test the tank of anything that warps in or is deployed (bye bye drones unless you have RR on them or only release them occasionally), if they can't break it they'll switch to another target, if a ship has Ewar or Logi they'll switch to that, and finally DPS.

I haven't properly figured out the new AI yet but the year and a bit I spent in wormholes seems to be paying off, only lost one hobgoblin since the patch. Signature radius doesn't seem to have an effect, I can still deploy drones to take on the frigates while maintaining aggro on my ship from the frigates and pretty much everything else, as long as I recall them after the frigates have gone pop, if I don't the drones die, fast.

TPs worked well in WHs, never tried webbing them but I assume they hate that as much as they hate being painted.

Old thread but may still be relevant

It could be worth asking in the wormhole subforum, those guys have 3 years of experience of dealing with NPCs that hate almost everything.

Edit, I've posted a request for details on how the sleeper AI prioritises it's targetting in the WH subforum, hopefully any replies will help with dealing with the new AI which, at its basic level, is essentially a watered down sleeper AI, as far as I can tell.

How are you RRing your drones without targeting them first? And how are you keeping them targeted after recalling them?

Call it a test shot, but if it were slightly more complex, the AI would only move one ship onto a new target to test it, and possibly continue agroing it. The whole thing with mass target shifts is a bit silly, but you can't just make it a designated ship because it could have already been popped, so all ships have to check for it.

The way to get around this, is to add another call to the AI that sees if current target is priority over checking new target. That will end up with a good amount of ships ignoring the new target, or all of them shifting to it based on it's potential threat level which determines it's priority vs. current target.

So now you've added another step and additional processes, but it is not yet enough. This means that you have to run a check to see if priority of AI ships engaged is less than, equal to, or greater than current target priority. If less than priority of current target, ignore new target, if greater than current target, then proceed to next check and lock target.

Now, you have to run a check for number of AI ships locking new target. If number is greater than 3, then run the following check: Target size vs. AI ship size for each AI ship. If all ships are equal, then select drop rate based on DPS, EWAR, or check if they are targeted by new target. ..and it just gets more complicated.

All the while they continue attacking current target. If multiple new targets appear, as is the case with drone launches, then the primary measure is priority, which a Drone will generally fail against a player ship. On the other hand, Drone Agression is sure to draw attention, so Drones could receive increased priority based on that aggression and their target.

If their target is a pure DPS ship, then it is lower priority than an AI EWAR ship. A Frigate receiving DPS from Drones however, would be higher Priority than a Battleship receiving DPS from Drones. So what you have here, is a defensive AI countermeasure.

If Drones are projecting greater DPS than Player ships, then of course they will increase in Priority as well.

Basically, it all boils down to an increased number of calls, the addition of priorities for the AI to act on, and a lot of coding, checks, and processes that just increase the load on the servers and so on.

Not that I program AIs, but I understand the basic principle. It's complicated.

Your final measure of how complex an AI is, is the fundamental value of that AI and its impact on gameplay vs the time investment and cost of making it, and the projected computational requirements of running it. ..or something like that.

It could use some work, but I think we won't see how good or bad it is until they fix the bugs in it.

I ask because my battleship takes well over 10 seconds to target a drone which is enough time for them to die a horrible horrible death. In case you're wondering I'm using or have tried everything including a MWD and ECM (TP always) to keep them alive :(

It's only "easy" right now because there's a defect with the threat that you're unknowingly exploiting. Soon as they fix that your drones are going to be toast. Hopefully they fix the AI before they fix the defect..

Admittedly the new AI is buggy and needs some work, and has quite possibly brought in the death knell for Gallente drone boats.

I asked the question in the wormhole subforum and got some good answers from the guys in there.
It looks like I have the aggression priorities right and going back to using drones the way I used them in whs (rarely and only if needed for NPC tackle) seems to be a good way of compensating for the increased aggression. Bear in mind that I don't use a BS for lvl 4's, my preferred ships are BC class and T3's, I find BSs slow and unwieldy as I prefer to be constantly moving around and using my mobility to my advantage in regards to damage management.