Destroyers with small/medium weapons target at Battleships rather than Corvettes

[positivebuff]

i discussed with a friend that destroyers should target enemy corvettes with his small/medium weapons (like storm fires) and kill them easily as the dev diary said they were intended to.. However we find that when destroyers fighting against a fleet consists of battleship and corvettes, wired things will happen:
At first, the destroyers fire at enemy corvettes since battleships are out of range.
But when enemy battleships and the destroyers are close enough, the medium weapons will aim at battleships even some corvettes are still alive. Enemy corvettes are safe then (at least the major threat: 2 medium storm fires are gone, and 2 small storm fires can't hurt them much. they have the shield capacity with 15.0 shield regeneration)...and keep shooting at my fleets, which finally turn the tide of the equal-capacity battle.

Spoiler: Two screenshots: medium storm fires targeting at Battleships

Spoiler: Battle result

A typical battle result among several tests (31 Battleships and 56 Destroyers vs 30 Battleships and 120 Corvettes):

Battleships (in two fleets are identical):

Destroyers:

Corvettes:

This battle should be divide into two parts: destroyers vs corvettes (without torpedo they should aim at destroyers > battleships) and battleships vs battleships. And two separate parts can win: 56 Destroyers can destroy 120 Corvettes easily (i delete the 61 battleships and remove the fleet leader before the battle begin, but the battle result still show them):

and 31 Battleship can certainly defeat 30 identical Battleships.
However put these two parts together, my fleet is defeated: destroyers waste their high tracking firepower on enemy battleships...

Destroyers are equipped with 2S and 2M lvl3 storm fires and assumed to be corvette-killers. The medium storm fires have only 10% armor penetration, why do destroyers think it's better to use this weapon against battleships with 90% damage reduction?
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i try to get rid of this attack priority by changing the weapon of destroyers. Based on ship_behaviors/00_standard_ships.txt, the priority is decided by not only the ship size difference but also the estimated damage dealt to enemy, damage to shield and (enemy armor * shield penetration), so i decide to equip my destroyers with no extra shield damage and no shield penetration and no armor penetration weapons like missiles, flak batteries, small mass drivers..

Spoiler: ship_behaviors: destroyer_default

ship_behavior = {
    name = "destroyer_default"
    preferred_attack_range = median        #max/min/median/12/412..    #this is the distance to target the ship wants to keep when attacking
    
    formation_distance = 10                #when orbing/following ship will try to keep this distance to assigned position   
    return_to_formation_distance = 60    #when attacking the ship will switch to passive mode if distance to assigned position is greater that this

    collision_awareness = 0.75            #how much we try to avoid other ships
    collision_strafe = 0.5                #collision_strafe allows the ship to move in any direction while colliding with another
    collision_radius = 1.0
    attack_move_pattern = none            #stationary/charge/follow/stationary/none
    passive_move_pattern = follow
    
    desc = "DESTOYER_DEFAULT_BEHAVIOR_DESC"
    
    targeting = {
        component_target_weight_mult    = 1.0        #score += <weights based on target ship size from components> * <component_target_weight_mult>
        keep_previous_target_bonus        = 100        #flat bonus for keeping previous target
        damage_value                    = 5            #score += estimated damage dealt ( including damage to shields ) * <damage_value>
        low_health_bonus                = 500        #flat bonus if estimated damage will kill the target in a few shots
        shield_focus_value                = 5            #score += estimated shield damage dealt * shield damage bonus * <shield_focus_value>
        armor_focus_value                = 5            #score += enemy armor * shield penetration value * <armor_focus_value>
        already_incoming_damage_penalty = 200        #score -= ( fleet total estimated damage to enemy / enemy max HP ) * <already_incoming_damage_penalty>.
        distance_to_fleet_penalty        = 20        #score -= manhattan-distance between enemy and fleet * <distance_to_fleet_penalty>
        size_difference_penalty            = 100        #score -= Abs( ship size - enemy ship size ) * <size_difference_penalty>. "Pick a fight with someone your own size!"
        transport_target_penalty        = 50000        #if( target is transport ) score -= <transport_target_penalty>
        civilian_target_penalty            = 100000    #if( target is civilian ) score -= <civilian_target_penalty>
    }
}

i equip them with various weapons and do experiments, want a better result. but this wired priority is still there. For example, small mass drivers seem also like targeting at Battleships (it has 45 range and can hit battleships) and corvettes receive no damage. There is a very clear screenshot showing that swarmer missiles (0% shield penetration, normal damage to shield, 0% armor penetration. It has 100% Accuracy and 70 Tracking which means it should be another perfect weapon against corvettes) also like targeting at battleships rather than corvettes.

Spoiler: Screenshot: Swarmer missiles flying across the battlefield to hit battleships

I'm not happy with this result... since we already find that a fleet consists of only corvette (2S plasma + 1S disruptor) can totally defeat a fleet consists of only battleships (1XL arc emitter + 1L disruptor + 1L4M plasma) in an equal-capacity battle. This wired attack priority makes corvettes too strong.....

Spoiler: 15 Battleships vs 120 Corvettes. Only 17 corvettes lost.

--------
At last, i find a brutal way to "fix" it: i change the size_difference_penalty of destroyers targeting priority to 10000 and finally force them to fire at corvettes. However it means that destroyers with 1L1M weapons will not target at big ships...
anyway, i hope devs will notice this problem and find a good way to fix it.
(thanks for reading this long story... and also sorry for my English)

 

[Risa]

Oh well, this smashes several of my theories how targeting works. Great.

Maybe it has something to do with "armor_focus_value = 5" ? What will happen if change it to -5?

 

[CocoCincinnati]

I wonder if this has to do with the tendency of ships to focus on the latest target to enter the combat. For example, if you attack a space port and then come in range of a mining station after that, or if you attack some mining drones, you want to make sure and do it out of range of the mining station they are protecting, otherwise your fleet will ignore the drones and race towards the station, taking damage all the way. I wonder if what you saw was a result of this behavior. The vettes are targeted first when they come into range, but then the BB's come into range so all ships focus solely on them instead.

To add my own observations to this topic. I was just noticing last night that one of my destroyers with 1 L stormfire and 1 M stormfire was actually firing at two different targets. I hadn't noticed that happening before but I thought it was really cool that it was doing that. This was against Amoeba mothers and their strike craft so I'm not sure which size they were each firing at, could be they were both firing at the same size target. I have noticed while fighting Amoeba's though that the targeting was doing some weird things. For example if I have 2 types of vettes, one with torps one with kinetics, I would expect the kinetics to target the strike craft and the torps to target the mothers. But the torps all seem to fire at the strike craft instead (and it's hard to see where the kinetics are firing) but the weirdest thing is that they seem to be hitting them more than what you think they would. There really should be some prioritizing based on weapon size. Small weapons should start small and work up, large weapons (or large damage weapons like torps) should do the opposite. And if torps are meant to be capital ship killers they really should be fired at the larger targets more....and miss small nimble targets more (at least more than what it seems like now from watching battles).

Keep in mind, this is all from casual observation, not testing observation like the OP did, so I could be mistaking what I thought I saw.

 

[apoc527]

I hope the devs see this and can comment. @Wiz

 

[jju_57]

Without checking to see what ALL DD's are doing this means nothing. The targeting mechanics try not to overload and overkill a target. So if other DD's are currently targeting the corvettes then this makes perfect sense. Question is if the enemy corvettes are targeted by any other ship.

Flip this and say you had 20 DD's and the enemy had 2 corvettes left. People would complain why there are 10 DD's on each corvetted when they could have been helping to take out the capitals.

So we need more data and more info before any conclusion can be reached.

 

[martin4444]

We the players need the ability to set our own priority targeting. Could be something simple. If you as a player wanted to assign target priority for your battleships to fire on corvettes first (not sure why anyone would but let us decide!) before going after other battleships etc.

Options are good.

That said.. I also want the ships to have a bit of a random elements.. each ship has it's own captain.. and it can get very hectic in a battle.. and sometimes they just need to be shooting at something else, because there is huge battle ship in the way of my target and I can't "see it".

Just because we set an order of battle, does not mean it can always be executed.

 

[apoc527]

We the players need the ability to set our own priority targeting. Could be something simple. If you as a player wanted to assign target priority for your battleships to fire on corvettes first (not sure why anyone would but let us decide!) before going after other battleships etc.

Options are good.

Given how the game's targeting works, that would involve a major rewrite of many, many systems. Not saying it's impossible, just that they'd have to devote an entire expansion pack, probably for $20, to make such a rework worthwhile.

 

[Fal Soram]

This is the same targeting system that decides a mining station and transports are a bigger threat to an entire fleet than a lvl 6 station and a fortress that snared the fleet. It needs a massive rework.

That being said, it would be a much bigger job compared to what your doing, but have you considered assigning target weights to individual weapons as opposed to the ships? I have this line in the component template for a few custom weapons I've made, and for the most part it does work in forcing that weapon to fire at the intended target, while the smaller guns engage others.


target_weights = {
npc_warship_01 = 5000
space_dragon_baby = 5000
massive_ship_fallen_empire = 5000
large_ship_fallen_empire = 5000
battleship = 5000
cruiser = 2500
destroyer = 1000
small_ship_fallen_empire = 1000
}

 

[apoc527]

The code has been changed such that civilian ships and stations shouldn't be targeted like they used to. I haven't fully confirmed that to be the case, but it does seem better.

 

[GloatingSwine]

The code has been changed such that civilian ships and stations shouldn't be targeted like they used to. I haven't fully confirmed that to be the case, but it does seem better.

Transports still absorb fire sometimes though.

And fleets love to pick targets from the newest enemy fleet that enetered the battle, even if it means driving past things in an existing fleet that are shooting at them. Staggered battle entries will maim fleets that should stand up to the enemy if they all fought together.

 

[genrtul]

Maybe the destroyers are firing at the target they can do the most damage to? That would probably be the battleships in this case, especially if they have shields up.

EDIT: Ok, I actually read the post... I mean, it seems like valid behavior to be shooting at whatever you can do the most damage to. At least it's not obvious what a better solution would be.

Were the corvettes you were shooting at with the swarmers at more than 70 evasion?

 

[GloatingSwine]

Maybe the destroyers are firing at the target they can do the most damage to? That would probably be the battleships in this case, especially if they have shields up.

EDIT: Ok, I actually read the post... I mean, it seems like valid behavior to be shooting at whatever you can do the most damage to. At least it's not obvious what a better solution would be.

Were the corvettes you were shooting at with the swarmers at more than 70 evasion?

Even at high evasion autocannon will do more to corvettes than battleships. Medium AC are going to hit 70% evasion better than half the time for all their damage rather than losing at least 70% to armour. Evasion would have to hit about 130 before a DD with stormfires would do more against a BB.

 

[genrtul]

Even at high evasion autocannon will do more to corvettes than battleships. Medium AC are going to hit 70% evasion better than half the time for all their damage rather than losing at least 70% to armour. Evasion would have to hit about 130 before a DD with stormfires would do more against a BB.

The thing is armor doesn't affect damage done to shields. So if the BBs still have shields up it's possible that the calculation ignores their armor and at that point if the corvettes have anything more than 70% evasion then the damage against the BBs will be higher.

 

[Space Chicken]

Yep, it's true that DD guns make more damage to BB shields (100% damage) than to corvettes (100% - extra evasion) so that would kind of make sense in that case. DDs help BBs to take enemy BB shields down and when that happens they change back to corvettes. Can you try what happens when you take shields off completely from BBs?

Reason why DD+BB fleet loses could be that before BBs can shoot each other, they shoot the little ones as they don't have range for anything else. BBs can hit DDs, but they can't hit corvettes.

Very nice to see someone testing these. I just started 1.3 game and I am curious also.

 

[Deep Space Explorer]

I've been doing some testing a couple days ago and saw a somewhat different behavior.
Granted, my destroyers were armed with lasers, not autocannons, and target ships didn't have any shields/additional armor.

Destroyers targeted Corvettes first, then Destroyers/Cruisers/Battleships at random.

Corvettes targeted Corvettes first, then Destroyers/Cruisers, then Battleships.

Corvettes with torpedoes targeted Battleships first, then Cruisers, then Destroyers, then Corvettes.

Cruisers targeted Destroyers first, then Corvettes, then Cruisers, then Battleships.

Battleships targeted Battleships, then Destroyers/Cruisers, then Corvettes.