AI doesn't fight back against transports as air units

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noidea
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Joined: 28 Jun 2012, 06:25

AI doesn't fight back against transports as air units

Post by noidea »

If you send a VTOL in to attack an enemy base, the enemy's construction vehicles start building AA defensive structures.

But not with transports. After noticing this behavior I built 15 super transports just to see how far I could push it. I wiped out the entire map, eventually. Only 1 of the 5 other AI players in the skirmish had at some point built AA structures, and that base made short work of the transports rather quickly. This actually didn't take as long as you would think. Because the transports have heavy machineguns on them, they cut right through the base's defensive swarm of cyborgs, which leaves the base defenseless.

I probably could've done it with the smaller cyborg transports as well, but they don't have as high of a defensive capability.

I wasn't sure if this should've been filed as a bug, or put in another part of the forum where devs will see it.

But it seems to me like one of three solutions would solve this problem:

1: AI should recognize that a flying unit(VTOL/type, if you will) is what's attacking the base, and respond by building AA structures.
2: The cyborg/super transport units don't need to be re-loaded like other flying units do. Maybe it's time to add a shot limit to them?
3: Transport units are so massive(particularly the super) that tanks should be able to lock onto them, even when in flight. Normally, tanks don't target air units at all.(except the high velocity, it will target air units)

Because the super transport's defensive capability is so high, it wasn't even really necessary to keep flying around in circles around the base. I let them land, and units like tanks and others often times didn't even notice. They just sat there dumb while the transports pelted them into destruction. If a new tank did happen to get created by an enemy factory, it would recognize the transports sitting there and start firing, but(especially with the heavy tank) it would do greater damage to the base structures in close proximity than the transports.

If it matters, the map I did this on was the 6P critical-cycle map, technologies for armor and bullets both at max, auto-repair. I even had the AI set to insane. On the transport units, the defences are so high that the auto repair actually repairs the unit faster than most hardpoint structures can damage them.

In other words, your transports are practically invincible. :ninja:
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Iluvalar
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Re: AI doesn't fight back against transports as air units

Post by Iluvalar »

The is a big fight on the forum on either :
A) Remove all weapons from it.
B) Leave it a normal (non-vtol) single machine gun as only weapon.

The vtol weapons being 5x too strong because it is supposed to need a constant reload on a pad.
Heretic 2.3 improver and proud of it.
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NoQ
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Re: AI doesn't fight back against transports as air units

Post by NoQ »

AI
? Which one?
Per
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Re: AI doesn't fight back against transports as air units

Post by Per »

Iluvalar wrote:The is a big fight on the forum on either :
A) Remove all weapons from it.
B) Leave it a normal (non-vtol) single machine gun as only weapon.

The vtol weapons being 5x too strong because it is supposed to need a constant reload on a pad.
Weapons were removed from transports in master (ie for 3.2). FYI.
noidea
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Re: AI doesn't fight back against transports as air units

Post by noidea »

Removing the weapon is probably a bad idea.

The weapon should be changed. Instead of a heavy machine gun, make the cyborg transport dependent upon the hurricane AA turret and come equipped with one, and make the super transport dependent upon the whirlwind AA turret, and come equipped with that.

I know it's only a game, but in the real world transports typically do have some way of fighting back, and often times a real transport would use what it has for AA combat anyways.

So changing the transport to an AA option turret should/could end up by far being the best solution.
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NoQ
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Re: AI doesn't fight back against transports as air units

Post by NoQ »

make the cyborg transport dependent upon the hurricane AA turret ... and make the super transport dependent upon the whirlwind AA turret
No thanks. Flamer players should be able to enjoy transport as well; whirlwind requires advanced machinegun technology, which is hardly necessary.
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