AI targetting jammer

I am still looking for ways to give the little guy a chance against the odds, be it only temporary or as a last ditch effort in battle.

E-war is a cool feature, and a radar-jammer would be an interesting item, though radar-jamming is about as stealthy as a flash-bang, you aren't sneaky, they're just temporarily blind.

That said I find that big guy vs little guy fights in SE1 pvp are often very much literal, with the big guy flying enough heavy-armor around to just sumo the little-guy in to scrap and barely notice the resulting dent in the armor. Of course some big-guys may opt for missile-swarms as their primary weapon, but in the end we have the same issue, a substantial disparity in combat-resources. E-war doesn't fix this, both sides will use it, the larger ship will spend proportionately less of the hull-space it would have used for weapons on it, and the results will typically be the same.

Sadly balancing big vs small fights in SE is extremely difficult thanks to how the math of scale interacts with SE's extremely plentiful resources and near limitless customization. You either work things favoring offense, making smalls king and pvp a short game of rocket-tag, because if anything dies in a few solid hits then why not only use stuff that is already paper, or you work things favoring defense, making larges king with longer fights of epic broadsides and then work to keep smalls from being totally irrelevant.

As is, I think SE already has the balance about right there, fights aren't so short as to be boring and well-designed smalls can still inflict meaningful damage when either used by a skilled pilot or in numbers. The only thing I think they really need is a bump to the top-speed of smalls (not acceleration, just top speed they can reach) and possibly h2 storage so that people that aren't skilled small pilots still see a use in them aside from efficiency and the 3 Factorum sites you meant to loot with them.

It is not always about direct combat, it could be that a small fighter is a diversion for getting a hydroman in close and jamming automated weapons temporarily could really help.

... I think everyone here thought your AI-jammer was just jamming the AI blocks, and not any and all things that use AI.

Infinitely respawning grinder monkeys are a blight on the game, and while the idea of boarding-parties taking a ship in a pitched battle is cool, 99.99% of the time what you actually get is someone that could fight instead choosing to risk nothing and throwing infinite suits at an offline or otherwise undefended target.

E-war is cool, stealth and misdirection are cool, letting grinder-monkeys just turn all your turrets off before they offline-raid you is not. It may not be what you intended of the feature, but it is what you have inadvertently suggested, and you are unlikely to get support for it.

I am only thinking of stopping the AI targetting on turrets.

Ok... so exactly as I just explained? Someone logs out, then a grinder-monkey uses this and shuts all the logged-out player's turrets off, after which said grinder-monkey steals all the logged-out player's stuff effectively unopposed...

I get that you're expecting the use of an NPC crew-feature as a counter to this, but assuming you can even hire an npc crew in multiplayer, and assuming people even want to interact with the requisite "be an HR-manager for a procedural npc crew" mini-game, crews require a lot of space that simply can't work for a lot of designs. It wouldn't help the "little guys", it would hand them over on a platter for not being big enough.

If you really want to help smaller builds against larger targets, I'd advise instead working out some manner of accuracy-disruptor that reduces the accuracy of turrets. People could still land hits if they get close (or if the target was large), so it wouldn't just be an instant lose/win device when people are light on fixed weapons or internal-space for extra crew.

So if the jammer worked for a 20 second period and then took an hour to recharge, would that make a difference?

Is there a heavy PVP bias over PVE?

There have been many ideas that have been proposed for SE2 and are in the air in terms of SE1 gameplay.

Those ideas on their own may not stand up to your tests, but when ideas are combined they will create a new functioning balanced game.

To reject an idea without thinking how you could make it work is to not want a new game.

I am sure that it is possible to make new things work if enough thought from many minds is applied.

This will not be the case with all things, but a little imagination can make for fun things to be realised.

Just a thought, may be having an NPC crew might help on a solo ship.

Would choosing options D,H and C be better than choosing option K?

Decoys are effective on stations, but not much on moving targets, and not well against rail guns.

@Deon: Respectfully, sometimes one can reject ideas because they're just plain bad idea, and/or not thought out enough. I do not owe any idea consideration on how to make it work at all as no idea is entitled to automatic support, or automatic criticism.

Now that said I reject this idea completely because jamming the AI outright straight up means that solo players would be restricted to static weapons only and could NEVER have automated defenses of any kind. It gives an instant "i win" button to group players in its current proposed form. In other words if Johnny 2x4 and his pal little Timmy come to a battle with a ship using 10 turrets, and Little Suzie brings her ship with 10 turrets and this weapon gets used, Suzie now has to choose between piloting her ship and praying one of her weapons got frozen in a good position to still actually work. Where as either Timmy or Johnny just has to hop in a gun control chair and there you go.

And no choosing options D H and C would not change my thoughts as it's still an instant "I win" button for group players, only now in single use form like a one cup coffee creamer or something. You can use any of those downsides you want to use, the issue is with the core concept of what you're proposing. And by all means feel free to propose things as that's never been my issue. The issue in this instance is you're basically proposing an "I win" button for group players vs solo players.

As for my own personal tests I'm looking at this from 2 perspectives, one being a player such as yourself or anyone else from the community. And 2 is looking at it from my experience developing content for other games that I've done for over 20 years. While I will never claim to know everything about SE (or any game unless I made it), I know enough to tell you that an idea like this would not be healthy for the game as it allows you to harm another's grid purely by said jammer existing, and with no way to prevent it.

Lastly, I must firmly disagree on decoys not being effective on moving targets. Decoys themselves aren't meant to be 100% effective anyways. Even if all they direct away or soak up is say 45% of the incoming shots, that's still less damage going towards critical systems. Weapons aren't going to perfect on moving targets anyways as you have to learn to fire where they're going to be and not where they are currently. As for railguns, they have no turret form in vanilla and the job of decoys is to distract enemy turrets. Decoys don't work as well against the static railguns because there's no overall AI or "brain" to distract. Lastly for decoys they also need to be placed in strategic locations too.

Anyways to conclude I think any "I win" type of feature that can harm another's grid purely by existing and with no counter (warheads excluded) purely by existing is a bad design.

Now if you want a "targeting computer" of sorts that can try to reduce the effectiveness of decoys that are close enough, then sure by all means. Then at that point it's an arms race of decoy power vs targeting computer power.

So you would like an autopilot to free the player to use a turret and an NPC character to man the second gun to even the odds?

As for helping the process, you are already doing that.

You could use option J as a counter if you really want a counter to the Jammer.

There are no instant wins and no certainty, only stats.

If you are trying to put yourself in another's shoes then know that there are many shoe sizes and some will not fit you. It is impossible to know how every player feels about something unless they tell you and not everyone will be upfront with that too.

Decoys do not stop bullets from firing, and stray bullets can still do damage. There are more stray shots with moving targets.

As for an arms race, tech trees are always arms races.

SE has been an ever evolving game, things are tried, changed, then new things are added again. This is good, as the game playing experience has more to offer with each iteration. Some things work, some do not, and some are adjusted to give balance. Not everything is clear cut when introducing these elements, but with a positive attitude things will be created, improved and become standard. Even your doubts and reservations have a place in making this possible.

@Deon: You're misunderstanding what I'm saying in several places.

"So you would like an autopilot to free the player to use a turret and an NPC character to man the second gun to even the odds?"

No I'm saying I don't want this at all nor will alot of other people because it gives an instant "I win" to group players since they would be able to control their guns directly and it renders any turret weapon useless with the push of a button and thus is bad game design.

"There are no instant wins and no certainty, only stats."

Objectively false. There are absolutely instant "I win" conditions that can happen. There are also blocks that are so overpowered by their very nature they guarantee a win, or make it next to impossible to lose purely by existing, and even potentially open up abuses among the playerbase. Case and point Jump Inhibitors which are nothing but a ganker's wet dream so they can force unwanted pvp on anyone at the drop of a hat. You know as well as I do that thing would never be used on anyone who had a chance of fighting back but would be used purely by people wanting to be clowns and camp less established people. Likewise this jammer you're proposing would face the same abuses. It would NEVER be used on people who could fight back, but would be used to abuse those who couldn't.

The problem is that blocks like this serve only one purpose which is to give one side a handicap in their favor. With things like shields, stronger armor, or even custom weapons, they do not harm another's build purely by existing nor do they automatically guarantee you a win. With shields or stronger armor, you need to do the engineering to properly support them and make the best use of them, especially since shields need power. With custom weapons, you need to do the engineering to place them in the best spots to defend your grid, but also need to do direct those weapons too. Shields and stronger armor can be breached and overpowered. Weapons can usually be dodged or deflected. If they're not dodged there are ways you can reduce their effectiveness such as by using shields or stronger armor, and also based on how you build your ship and place things. Point being there are counters in place and ways around things.

With things like Jump Inhibitors and jammers like this, there are no counters to them, and there is no input or engineering required. They simply need to be present and you need to push a button, and you get instant effect that allows you to either turn off your opponent's jump drives, or in this case turn off their turrets. That is so overpowered it's not even funny and would only be used to grief. When you can harm another's grid purely by something existing with the other side having no counter at all, that's going too far.

"If you are trying to put yourself in another's shoes then know that there are many shoe sizes and some will not fit you. It is impossible to know how every player feels about something unless they tell you and not everyone will be upfront with that too."

I don't need to know how every single individual in the community feels to know that they won't like certain stuff and will think something is a bad idea. We can look at past similar examples of community reaction to get an idea, along with similar features in similar games. Now I will grant that metric isn't always perfect, but it's accurate more often than not. If every single time the SE community has shot down certain suggestions, such as Jump Inhibitors, I don't need to go around polling everyone to know that another suggestion for inhibitors would suddenly be accepted. When it comes to vanilla SE, most of the community does not want something being added to the game simply by it existing and never has. If someone wants to make a jammer mod of some kind and use that, the community never really cared. However most folks do not want that sort of thing in the vanilla game because again it's a griefer's wet dream. I use the inhibitor example because it's one such thing that most people do not want and this is essentially the same thing you're proposing, save specifically for turrets instead of jump drives.

"Decoys do not stop bullets from firing, and stray bullets can still do damage. There are more stray shots with moving targets.

Never once claimed they stopped bullets from firing. Only pointed out that if one wishes to confuse a turret, decoys are one of the best ways to do it. Also even with decoys they're not meant to be 100% effective. They're meant to mitigate some fire by draw that fire towards itself vs other parts of the ship. All they do is try to confuse the turret on where something is, they don't outright stop them from working. What you're proposing on the other hand would completely stop turrets from functioning at all. Respectfully, if you can't or won't see the difference between those 2 then there's nothing I can do to help you, nor can anyone else.

"SE has been an ever evolving game, things are tried, changed, then new things are added again. This is good, as the game playing experience has more to offer with each iteration. Some things work, some do not, and some are adjusted to give balance. Not everything is clear cut when introducing these elements, but with a positive attitude things will be created, improved and become standard. Even your doubts and reservations have a place in making this possible."

The bolded sections here get to the heart of the issue. There's nothing wrong with trying new things first off. The issue here though is jammers like this proposal aren't new, and time and again have been shot down by the community at large because they don't work either mechanically, gameplay wise, or both. Jammers like this are one such example of something that just doesn't work. And we have a healthy amount of data to show that they don't. Something that can harm another's build purely by existing is NOT an improvement in any way to the game, but a detriment. Nor should such things that busted ever become standard because we know they don't work.

Do you have a link to examples of historical conversations on SE about this that I could read?

(not redditox please)

I noticed that Splitsie made a whole series that included the use of Inhibitor tech.

@Deon: Your best bet is pulling some of the old stuff from the wayback machine on the old Keen forums and checking old stuff out on the keen discord. The people who like inhibitor tech are by far outnumbered by those who don't.