Custom turrets ignore aiming deadzones. (Auto turret)

It's pretty straight forward. Start a new creative save on Earth (easy start).

then build a rotor+hinge custom turret on an elevated "Box" with power.

Custom turret controller and enable AI.

if you spawn in something (and change ownership), that then falls below the horizontal line of said "Box" it will still aim at it even when it cannot possibly hit it.

if you then spawn a new enemy, it will not change targets to the one it can hit.

Note, if you move the turret manually to face the new spawned entity it will change targets, but the problem arise again when it drops below the platform and you spawn a new target.

in this last picture i built a larger tower to see if the height difference mattered, as you can see on the image turrets (to the right) are both aiming at the downed ships below their view and not on the new ship (3).

I will add, that if the target is behind a structure, it will actually change targets.

Building blocks around the rotor "fixes" this issue as the target is occluded by blocks, the same goes for terrain.

last test for today, now the upper turret will not recognize targets at all, new save with all turrets and entities attached.

Hello, Tommy!

Thank you for the new save, I was having the same issue with the first file. So far, I have been testing this with a few different blueprinted ships and it seems to be changing focus without issue. I will keep testing this and see if I can reproduce your issue :)

Kind Regards

Laura, QA Department

great :) let me know if you want me to test something or if you need anything else.

Maybe it is related to "threat score" of the industrial hydrogen thrusters? as it seems to be those it is locked to when they get separated from the ship.

Hello, Tommy!

I have still been unable to reproduce the issue. Is it only affecting those with the threat score mentioned? Has it happened at all to anything else?

Kind Regards

Laura, QA Department

I can confirm that the issue with the CTC targeting things outside its own field of movement is still an issue. And it does seem to want to target Industrial hydrogen thrusters quite often.

Hello, Tommy!

I have still been unable to reproduce your issue sadly. I notice you and andersenman have been in discussion. Is the file provided by andersenman one that is relevant to your issue? Is this one that could be looked at and possibly reproduced or, not quite the same as your original issue? :)

Kind Regards

Laura, QA Department

it can be classified as the same issue.

the main problem is how it refuses to re-target when the target is no longer possible to hit. unless obscured by terrain or blocks. it should be pretty apparent.

Hello, Tommy!

Thank you for confirming, I will continue to look at this :)

Kind Regards

Laura, QA Department

My biggest issue with this is how it locks to a particular part and stays locked until it is destroyed, even if a larger threat appears. I've had custom turrets lock to a single small grid small hydrogen thruster, meanwhile a new enemy tear my base apart :) But yes I suspect you are onto something here.

I've found that occluding said block with terrain or other blocks is an ok workaround for the issue though.

Yes, this sounds like "As expected", or "By design", if perhaps not quite "As desired". (… at least while you're on the receiving end of the attack. As the attacker, why yes, I'll happily take the accidental decoy function of detached thrusters, thank you very much.)

Anyhow: Would Forget target force a new acquisition even when no target was explicitly copied before? Chances might be the thruster is no longer as interesting as any remaining attacker grids. It seems not, or not reliably so. (See below.)

Haha yes i would also welcome a custom turret not ripping my ship apart :D

The frustrating things is that "Forget Target" is greyed out, even while it has a target locked. See attached pictures.

Edit: even locking to it with a cockpit, and then trying to forget it results in a greyed out button.

Edit2: it seems that cycling target options will make it recalculate threat scores. It will however still go back to whatever it was targeting first if the new one is destroyed.

This is the amount of occlusion you need for a 6 gatling hinge turret aiming at something quite close, it gets ridiculous quite fast.

Ok, I just tested it myself, and I used a timer to trigger Forget target even though it's greyed out.

I found:

• Once a target is locked, it stays locked until it is destroyed or otherwise removed. (Or maybe it just looks like it remains locked but in fact is reaquired immediately after "forgetting" it.)
  
• After losing a target, "forgetting and retargeting" sometimes works exactly once. Not sure why, could be a bug, can't quite see a pattern.

Here's a test world:

In this worldfile (attached), the turret rotor is limited to ±45° and the hinge to 0° and 90°. The rotor at the bottom can rotate the enemy boom with a battery at the end into and out of the turret's arc. The other batteries are SPRT, too, for copying and pasting with Keep original ownership on paste active. The timer calls Forget target and restarts itself every three seconds.

Enjoy.

I just found that it does however retarget if you fly a new potential enemy in front of the deviation arc.

Edit: Thanks for the file!

That does not match my observation. However, I readily admit I have only tested this with batteries, and only with spawning and deleting them, never with other blocks or by actually moving them into and out of arc or targeting range. If it turns out those things matter, then my observations would indeed paint an incomplete picture.

It only seems to work because you occlude the original target with new blocks (different grid), forcing it to retarget. So my observation is kind of irrelevant anyways.