firing frequency of NPC mining laser

[CommonSenseOTB]

I have a thought cim:

Why not make the npcs fire bursts or groups of shots, perhaps have accuracy determine how many shots can be grouped together and the pause time between groups with a small random variation for both. This could in effect simulate the noob pilot with bad marksmanship firing large bursts missing with many shots as well as the veteran firing 2 or 3 shot bursts with a pause between to assess the results and adjust. Then it would appear the npcs would be shooting just like I do.

[cim]

Why not make the npcs fire bursts or groups of shots, perhaps have accuracy determine how many shots can be grouped together and the pause time between groups with a small random variation for both.

It's subtle (probably far too subtle at the moment), but what's already in is a dynamic adjustment of the aim circle for NPCs. If they miss a shot, their aim circle gets smaller, which should mean that they don't try the same shot again until they're confident of a hit.

At low accuracy, their aim circle is pretty wide, and their adjustment per miss is pretty low, so it's not very noticeable.
At high accuracy, their aim circle is pretty narrow, so they don't miss anywhere near as much in the first place, so it's also not very noticeable.

I might experiment with widening the initial aim circle a fair bit, but making the adjustment much larger too, so that the less good ones start with some pretty wide shots and walk their aim on to target, while the better ones aim first then shoot...

[Thargoid]

The problem is finding genuine Jamesons to test with. I can test with an unequipped ship, but I can't test with the (lack of!) piloting skill I had a year ago...

Try going to the student union bar and installing a few evil juices first?

Either that or get some friends to playtest perhaps?

[Cody]

The problem is finding genuine Jamesons to test with. I can test with an unequipped ship, but I can't test with the (lack of!) piloting skill I had a year ago...

Yep... make that three years in my case. However, I will run a virgin Jameson for a few sessions/days, and see how it goes.

[Cody]

I see you've adjusted the aiming slightly - probably a good thing, as combined with the improved attack AI, it was a little harsh for a virgin Jameson.
However, it isn't too hard (in fact, I've enjoyed it) - but a virgin Jameson's biggest problem is still incoming missiles.

[Eric Walch]

...or when their laser has had some chance to cool, you're going to take a lot of hits quickly. Possibly I need to make the circle in which they think they're on target a little wider, so that they waste a few more shots - ...

I think this does not look correct in trunk now. New shots are already fired when the old shot is still on screen. This results in getting the impression that some ships have 2 or three lasers. I think the minimum time between shots must be the visibility time for a shot (kLaserDuration=0.175 seconds) so you never see two shots from the same mouth simultaneously.

Although, according the code they should be timely spaced already by weapon_recharge_rate, but I do see shots simultaneously, much to often. For the beam and military laser the weapon_recharge_rate used to be above the 0.175, but its now below.

[cim]

I think the minimum time between shots must be the visibility time for a shot (kLaserDuration=0.175 seconds)

Probably, yes. Was a slight problem in 1.76 looking from player external views at their own laser, but it's much more obvious now. I've taken kLaserDuration down to 0.09 in r5462, and it seems to still look good while avoiding this problem.