On Teekan escort hardpoints and AI utilisation.

[boolybooly]

I am playing Teekan this game because they are cute if a bit smelly, allegedly. In my last game as human I allied with Teekans and wondered how they lived. Now I know, they fight pirates day in day out.

Having played DW vanilla I know they were regarded as a bit of a sub-creature but they are one of the eight starter races, so I think its time to leave that kind of prejudice behind and give them some respect.

Speaking of behinds, something I have noticed with the Teekan escort hardpoint layout is that it is utterly impractical. This is because the large hardpoint is at the rear of the ship on rear facing geometry which I noticed because they cannot fire that weapon when in pursuit of another vessel. Like Fwiffo the Spathi in Star Control II : UrQuan Masters, they mount their most powerful weapon on the rear of the ship so they can fire when running away.

Teekan escort 01.jpg (1.35 MiB) Viewed 3095 times

In the context of the DW2 universe this strikes me as supremely unfair because this means pursuing Teekan escorts chasing pirates can only fire one weapon with maximum size 19. At best they can fire both when static and adopting a broadside orientation, which means they have to disable a ship with the S19 weapons before they can employ their full fire power and that includes ranged weapons like the wave bomb which ought to fire but doesnt and the Teekan escorts have to turn away from their quarry to fire it.

Add to that they do not space or orient themselves optimally and you have a situation where micromanagement has a huge impact on the outcomes of battles which is the opposite of the design approach in DW2. I just think that is unfair on Teekans and Teekan players.

What they dont do is adopt an effective broadside orientation on their own so they can fire the rear weapon, often they will just sit there almost at the correct angle but not, plugging away with the S19 but not the secondary weapon. The movement AI is not getting it right. This is also true in pursuit when, if they were faster than the target, they could come alongside and broadside them that way but they dont do that either and they crowd in behind the target they are attack by following, so they can only fire the forward gun. So they frequently do not fire the rear weapon when they might and have to be nudged until it fires.

Practically speaking I dont think it makes sense to reinvent the pursuit AI for just one race. The obvious answer is to allow the rear weapon to fire forwards while in pursuit and as a suggestion that could be done by moving it to just in front of the rear shield hardpoint or swapping it with that and raising it up a little so it can fire over the bump. At the very least give it 25° more arc at either side so that its current broadside orientation allows it to fire.

[Jorgen_CAB]

This is more an AI thing than anything else... the Teekans are suppose to mount Area Weapons there which are seeking weapons outside of the very first level. This means they can fire them 360 degrees anyway.

The thing probably is more that all AI ships uses the one and same combat tactics... where Teekan ships should always use Cautious/Neutral instead of Neutral/Aggressive.

There should be no shenanigans with special fire rules of any ship class or race, rather the proper AI and weapon layout should be used.

[boolybooly]

No they cant. As I said above the self guided area weapons do not behave as if they have 360° firing arc. I am forever having to turn the ships to get them to fire.

I completely agree internal self-consistency is important in a game which is why ships weapons should be useful not useless and the ships should be set up to make that possible, so where the weapons are not working properly the ship model has to be examined. In this case I think the firing arc is arbitrarily less than it should be judging by the model, it should exceed 180° and be more like 240° but it isn't. Guided weapons should fire out of the rear at any angle of approach to the target, they just dont until you give them a nudge.

[Jorgen_CAB]

To be honest I have not used Area Weapons much... but they are listed as Seeking (except the tier 0 one)... so they should fire 360 degrees. If they don't it must be some bug...

I have had missiles and torpedoes firing from the rear with no issues.

[boolybooly]

The wave bomb does not fire on approach, you have to micro the ship to turn and then it will usually fire, if not then reissue the attack command at a better angle and then it fires. I have seen that countless times, just saw it in a battle this morning and was looking very carefully.

So the logic with the rear M beam above is that if you have to turn the ship anyway then you may as well use the highest DPS weapon available and M beam has higher DPS than wave bomb.

The ion bomb on the other hand fires at any angle. There is no consistency in that so yes it must be a bug with wave bomb and it suggests the devs and testers have been testing ion bomb but not wave bomb, because they have focussed on favourite races and methods and not testing outside the box. My guess is Teekan were neglected because the escort hardpoint layout is so suboptimal. The minmax logic points at Boskaran and Mortalen with two forward facing size 120 hard points and they dont have to dick about changing the angle of attack to fire!

[Nightskies]

That's what he said, boolybooly. The wave bomb is the first weapon on the area weapons tree. It is direct fire, the rest are seeking. Like missiles (which are seeking), seeking weapons do not need to face the target to fire.

This is a weakness of the AI. This, combined with how the AI will put bombardment weapons and large and redundant scanner systems on all large ships, is a huge misuse of space, strategically and tactically speaking. This makes the AI ships quite weak by comparison to what any reasonable player would create. I believe this is intentional to make the player's victory all the more certain.

The AI's design tendencies can be modded to not use bombardment and scanners, which will make them harder, but making them not put weapons on the back is not so easy. Still, its not too detrimental; as aforementioned, Teekans favor area weapons, most of which are seeking, and no AI uses Aggressive Attack Stance. This means a ship will be willing to turn itself around to fire that weapon if its worthwhile.

So, in other words, yes, this point you bring up is a thing, but its not a bug. The AI is not meant to be difficult to beat, its more so that the game can be played optimally and finding those ways isn't meant to be spelled out, and that is part appeal of the game.

[boolybooly]

I see, capricious and arbitrary design decisions you mean, so its not a bug its just because its nuts.

Fine.

I just want a ship that can shoot straight, why wouldn't they? Why would any space going gerbil hobble their ships like that?

But its my fault, I picked the wrong team didn't I, Teekans are like a joke race aren't they? I see now why everyone on YouTube plays Ackdarian...

What have the devs got against them exactly? Were they bitten by a hamster in youth? Caught in a lemming migration in childhood? Mauled by a pack of rabid squirrels whilst picnicking in the park? What have rodentia done to them to deserve this? I feel only pity for all concerned.

And why is it all the pirates use human (like re: hardpoint layout) ships? They wouldn't use Teekan would they? That would be stupid, so why have a whole race using stupid ships? That's super stupid.

I get it though, to the devs the Teekan are scavengers from the desert, so the DW2 analogue of a StarWars universe Jawa/Tusken chimera. Naturally the devs seek revenge for the terrible incident of Anakin's mum, resulting in decades of hell for the whole far far away galaxy. It all makes sense now, they were nasty to Anakins mum and they deserve it. Serves them right. They deserve stupid ships. That'll learn 'em.

[Nightskies]

Really though, the Teekan don't fight so badly, they're actually pretty good. It just takes a bit of understanding of their fighting ethos and the weapons/components that work toward that end. Even have seen them win some wars (not against me) without me as their overlord, despite the weapon on the rear thing. It takes some patience to see, but Teekan ships will often turn tail under the AI's dictation, bringing those weapons to bear if they happen to be direct fire. While counterintuitive, its not so detrimental as I said in the prior post.

In fact, more often than not, its the pirates with human-like ships sporting rear-facing rail guns that have it the worst in that regard. Because they have superior firepower to early ships, they'll often keep facing their target, not bringing that rear mounted railgun to bear. Then again, that might also be an intended feature so the pirates are a little easier to beat.

Silly pirates and their mysophobia!

[boolybooly]

Well its driving me a bit nuts now. From what I have seen they dont use the rear weapon very well if it is direct fire. I was expecting them to use a broadside orientation, like ships in SotS can.

I imagine it does take patience to see them become viable, if I ever get that far, because they would need intimidator surge wave or better and probably improved escorts before they can fight effectively using rear mounted self-guiding weapons, because the wave bomb won't fire.

Plus these self guiding area effect torps only come into their own well after the start because of their high alpha in relation to repair systems and better charging shields which can reduce the impact of lower alpha high DPS weapons. As it is they have half the DPS of early kinetic weapons which is a disadvantage early game.

The problem I am facing starting out as a Teekan noob, is having to micro every battle because, as discussed elsewhere, of being harassed by pirates from the very beginning, which appears to be worse than other races due to a racial event storyline with advanced pirate factions, which I refuse to pay off, so need that rear turret to work with something better than starter seeker missiles and need the ships to use it, which they don't. So I am in micro hell, which is pretty frustrating tbh. Though thanks to the conversation we are having I can see how to improve it.

Currently the Teekans I am playing need ion bomb which fires in the rear mount (hooray) and about 10 escorts, half with ion only as it is so big, plus a station with ion, to defeat one advanced pirate and that is touch and go. After disabling the ship you need the rear mounted non-ion weapons to whittle down the armor and hull and they just wont fire and the ships dont turn to let them fire, so you have to turn them manually, then they stop firing the small forward weapon while turning because they dont have an attack order, no, they have a turn order so they won't fire, so you have to reissue the attack order when they have turned enough to use the rear mount.

Aaaaaaagh!! Aaaaaaagh!! Aaaaaaagh!!

Meanwhile Boskaran and Mortalen can mount the biggest of whatever they want at the front and blast away. Ackdarian and human ships have one medium plus one large mounts pointing forwards and Zenox and Haakonish have one large mount facing forwards and they get compensation in other departments.

Teekan get no compensation at all for a small forward mount and rear facing large and the battle AI wont use the weapons they can put in the large mount properly.

That is all I am trying to say...

[Jorgen_CAB]

Well its driving me a bit nuts now. From what I have seen they dont use the rear weapon very well if it is direct fire. I was expecting them to use a broadside orientation, like ships in SotS can.

I imagine it does take patience to see them become viable, if I ever get that far, because they would need intimidator surge wave or better and probably improved escorts before they can fight effectively using rear mounted self-guiding weapons, because the wave bomb won't fire.

Plus these self guiding area effect torps only come into their own well after the start because of their high alpha in relation to repair systems and better charging shields which can reduce the impact of lower alpha high DPS weapons. As it is they have half the DPS of early kinetic weapons which is a disadvantage early game.

The problem I am facing starting out as a Teekan noob, is having to micro every battle because, as discussed elsewhere, of being harassed by pirates from the very beginning, which appears to be worse than other races due to a racial event storyline with advanced pirate factions, which I refuse to pay off, so need that rear turret to work with something better than starter seeker missiles and need the ships to use it, which they don't. So I am in micro hell, which is pretty frustrating tbh. Though thanks to the conversation we are having I can see how to improve it.

Currently the Teekans I am playing need ion bomb which fires in the rear mount (hooray) and about 10 escorts, half with ion only as it is so big, plus a station with ion, to defeat one advanced pirate and that is touch and go. After disabling the ship you need the rear mounted non-ion weapons to whittle down the armor and hull and they just wont fire and the ships dont turn to let them fire, so you have to turn them manually, then they stop firing the small forward weapon while turning because they dont have an attack order, no, they have a turn order so they won't fire, so you have to reissue the attack order when they have turned enough to use the rear mount.

Aaaaaaagh!! Aaaaaaagh!! Aaaaaaagh!!

Meanwhile Boskaran and Mortalen can mount the biggest of whatever they want at the front and blast away. Ackdarian and human ships have one medium plus one large mounts pointing forwards and Zenox and Haakonish have one large mount facing forwards and they get compensation in other departments.

Teekan get no compensation at all for a small forward mount and rear facing large and the battle AI wont use the weapons they can put in the large mount properly.

That is all I am trying to say...

Do you put them at Cautious AI mode... should help considerably with them turning their rear against the enemy?

[boolybooly]

Thanks for the suggestion but for the devs benefit I would observe its not fair to have to use that workaround because the AI does not handle the Teekan need for broadsiding properly, on aggressive and neutral, as it means Teekans cannot use aggressive or neutral modes like all the other races.

I think anyway, cautious mode only helps broadsiding because they are more inclined to steer away from the target. Which is very Spathi for sure but this increases range which affects accuracy, meaning more shots miss. Its still not using the rear turret effectively with direct fire, including wave bomb, at close ranges so they are losing out because they were given a rear turret the ship movement AI cannot use.

This is why I feel cautious mode is not an equitable solution, though they do appear to use the rear weapon more, they are also more evasive and run away out of range for their own weapons more often and so fail to close on escaping opponents and focus firepower.

If they have a rear facing weapon, they should be able to use it i.e. both aggressively close on a target and steer when within closer ranges to bring an effective broadside to bear so they can use the rear weapon as often as they can instead of just sitting there around even static targets not using the rear weapon because they cannot be bothered to turn 25°.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Teekans are not suppose to be very aggressive any way... so that is not a good argument. On the other hand the AI need to be able to use them in Cautious mode, it currently don't do that so it is a handicap in that sense for the AI.

The developers have described the Teekans to use the typical strategy of running away and fire their most potent weapons backward, it is their general tactics and it is suppose to be that way. Not all races need to be equal or even equally good at what they do.

Using short range weapons with Teekan ships and design is generally not a good idea, neither is it intended. Long range also effect the opponent too you know.

[boolybooly]

The starter long range area weapon Wave Bomb, which appears to be always available on Teekan start is directional so the Teekan need to broadside correctly to fire that as it wont fit in the forward hardpoint.

Its true that in a single player game the races do not need to be equal. But they ought to be fun for the player and having to micro because the AI does not do its job is not fun. There is no point making a starter race which is not playable on a par with other races, its a wasted effort.

If the Teekan ships should only use 360° guided weapons in the rear slot then they should always start with Seeking Missile instead of Wave Bomb but they don't. Alternatively the Wave Bomb should be changed to fire at all angles, or the broadsiding needs to be improved, or the rear turret needs to be given a firing arc which allows the Wave Bomb to fire with current movement AI.

Any way you look at it the Teekan setup is not self consistent and deserves to be made good one way or another. Writing off the unsatisfactory situation with post hoc justification is not realistic or credible to the discerning players who write Steam reviews. Players appreciate devs who do the right thing.

I dont think the devs created short range weaponry for it not to be used. The Teekan ships may have been designed with an eye on 360° fire arc weapons but that is a work in progress as the inconsistency proved above demonstrates. The Teekan situation needs to be resolved and the best outcome would be if the Teekan could broadside properly as it would not only solve the problem, it would open up the ability to use other weapons more effectively, most importantly for the player who can have fun experimenting with different combinations and tactics if they so choose.

The Teekan are a starter race now, no longer just an NPR and deserve to be looked after well and made entertainingly playable, not frustratingly unplayable. Distant Worlds 2 was recently released and is openly in a process of improvement and development like the original Distant Worlds was for a long time and this is why it deserves feedback, which this is, intended to help the devs achieve a mutually satisfactory outcome.

[Jorgen_CAB]

The first level of the Area Weapon is pretty much inconsequential as it is only the first level, you get to the next level very fast anyway, no first level weapon are any good anyway.

I don't agree that all the races need to be samey and have equal value in all regards. Teekan have very specialized ships and that is just how it is, nothing wrong with this. They might not be good with short range aggressive weapons. Does not mean you can't use them, it just might not be optimal with them, that is all.

I think you will just have to accept that Teekans are a bit weaker in this area, especially extremely early in the game.

You could always mod the game and make the first level of Area weapon seeking too if it bothers you that much. That is a much better solution than changing how their ships work which is highly intentional.

[boolybooly]

I did not say all races should be the same, that is a straw man argument and a projection. No part of the game should be viewed as inconsequential, that is not clear thinking.

a beginning is a very delicate time

First impressions are lasting impressions.

[Erik Rutins]

I'll note that the AI should be able to use all ships and arcs and if you design a ship that has the bulk of firepower in its rear arcs, it should turn that ship to use those weapons. I have seen this work, but if you are seeing a situation where it's not working, please share a reproducible save with us and we will take a look.

The intent certainly is that the Teekans are somewhat cautious. The rear arcs are also quite useful for seeking weapons, such as the Teekan signature weapon, the seeking area Ion Bomb, which they can get quite early in the game. This doesn't mean that the AI shouldn't know how to fight the ship if it has direct fire weapons in it. On full auto it should. If you are manually controlling the ships, it will be relying on you to position them the way you want them to be.

Regards,

- Erik

[Nightskies]

That said, some indicator of the race's ship construction and battle ethos for first time players might be good. It is somewhat covered in the fluff text, but for instances like this, one might be frustrated they aren't able to achieve what they come up with because the race doesn't make ships that work with it.

Or just advise that everyone play human the first time. They're flexible!

[boolybooly]

Thanks for reading and replying Erik. I appreciate you need to focus your time on proven issues so I will try to prove it.

When examining past saves I found replication was unreliable. Often if I made a save showing particular behaviour, on reloading the escorts would suddenly behave differently and instead of being stuck in a forward facing posture as they were when the save was made, would perform a half turn on reload and start broadsiding like they are supposed to.

One v1069 save seems reliable as below and this shows two Teekan escorts attacking an advanced pirate escort "Fearless Champion" which is slowly moving forwards. Teekan escort "Elor Provocation" on the left side, is not using her rear weapon (Long Range Cannon) whereas "Destiny of Elor" upper right, is using her rear Wave Bomb.

These ships are both using movement AI following an attack order and IMHO I think its reasonable to expect effective broadside orientation to happen with that.

The next few seconds always seem to follow the same pattern depending on how the battle rolls and illustrate the fine line between the rear weapon working and not working. It must be about 10° of arc or less but the ship positioning does not quite meet the requirements for the weapon firing for many consecutive firing rounds.

This happens a lot and shows how Teekan escorts are losing at least 50% of their firepower in situations where ships are attacking a single target without secondary targets to fire at, especially when the target is moving, because the positioning resulting from attack movement AI does not match up with the firing arcs of rear weapons.

What I found simply was in the early Teekan game whether by default fleet automation or manually designated targets, ships pursue firing the forward weapon but failed to use the rear weapon.

Hope that helps.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I tried your game... and they seem to broadside just fine... I turned all the ship to Neutral/Neutral instead of Neutral/Aggressive seemed to work better too for me. The ships seemed to be able to turn and shoot with both front and rear weapons just fine.
They work even better at Cautious/Neutral setting...

If you don't have a seeking weapon in the rear you will lack firepower on approach, that is for sure. You just have to accept that with a Teekan fleet and rely more on Seeking weapons as they probably should with area weapons.

It does sometimes not rotate its rear to face the opponent... but most often it seem to do it... it also depends on the movement of the opponent ship.