Snipers and Sentinal Frigates: Am I missing something

[keith.lamothe]

Snipers' base damage sucks. Sniper shooting ships they don't have damage bonuses for would thus make them "suck". That's what focus fire could make them do. It would make the Snipers shoot ships they don't have damage bonuses for more often. Why would I want my Snipers to do 63333 damage on a Missile Frigate when they could do 379998 damage on a Bomber?

Focus fire makes them evaluate how many shots it would take them to kill each potential target (factoring in current health of the target too), and basically sort them by that (ascending), and suppresses the logic elsewhere that causes ships to prefer targets that are targetted by fewer other ships.

[TechSY730]

Snipers' base damage sucks. Sniper shooting ships they don't have damage bonuses for would thus make them "suck". That's what focus fire could make them do. It would make the Snipers shoot ships they don't have damage bonuses for more often. Why would I want my Snipers to do 63333 damage on a Missile Frigate when they could do 379998 damage on a Bomber?

Focus fire makes them evaluate how many shots it would take them to kill each potential target (factoring in current health of the target too), and basically sort them by that (ascending), and suppresses the logic elsewhere that causes ships to prefer targets that are targetted by fewer other ships.

Which would implicitly have it factor in bonuses too, as the higher the bonus, the less shots (of the type it is using) it takes to kill that target. This would mean it would tend to prefer polycrystal or any of the other stuff it has a bonus against, right?

[pheonix89]

Snipers' base damage sucks. Sniper shooting ships they don't have damage bonuses for would thus make them "suck". That's what focus fire could make them do. It would make the Snipers shoot ships they don't have damage bonuses for more often. Why would I want my Snipers to do 63333 damage on a Missile Frigate when they could do 379998 damage on a Bomber?

Focus fire makes them evaluate how many shots it would take them to kill each potential target (factoring in current health of the target too), and basically sort them by that (ascending), and suppresses the logic elsewhere that causes ships to prefer targets that are targetted by fewer other ships.

As keith said, thats not how it works. Focus fire prioritizes kills over efficiency.  With it on, Snipers will ALWAYS engage bombers first, because they oneshot an equal mark bomber. The only time snipers won't engage an equal mark bomber is if there is something else that will die to one hit, and the tie-breaker picks it. I assume that the anti-overkill logic remains in between snipers and sniper-types (sniper turrets, spire railguns) to prevent wasted instant shots. A mark 1 sniper needs 5 hits to drop a core bomber, and the 5th hit is massive overkill. It also needs 5 hits to drop a Mk1 missile frigate. Therefore, even with the most extreme case possible, against triangle ships it goes to the tiebreaker. Any other scenario (higher mark sniper, higher mark frigate, lower mark bomber) gets the bomber attacked. The multiplier is so high that focus fire essentially guarantees that snipers will engage only things they counter, barring a chance for a one-hit kill.

[Kahuna]

Snipers' base damage sucks. Sniper shooting ships they don't have damage bonuses for would thus make them "suck". That's what focus fire could make them do. It would make the Snipers shoot ships they don't have damage bonuses for more often. Why would I want my Snipers to do 63333 damage on a Missile Frigate when they could do 379998 damage on a Bomber?

Focus fire makes them evaluate how many shots it would take them to kill each potential target (factoring in current health of the target too), and basically sort them by that (ascending), and suppresses the logic elsewhere that causes ships to prefer targets that are targetted by fewer other ships.

As keith said, thats not how it works. Focus fire prioritizes kills over efficiency.  With it on, Snipers will ALWAYS engage bombers first, because they oneshot an equal mark bomber. The only time snipers won't engage an equal mark bomber is if there is something else that will die to one hit, and the tie-breaker picks it. I assume that the anti-overkill logic remains in between snipers and sniper-types (sniper turrets, spire railguns) to prevent wasted instant shots. A mark 1 sniper needs 5 hits to drop a core bomber, and the 5th hit is massive overkill. It also needs 5 hits to drop a Mk1 missile frigate. Therefore, even with the most extreme case possible, against triangle ships it goes to the tiebreaker. Any other scenario (higher mark sniper, higher mark frigate, lower mark bomber) gets the bomber attacked. The multiplier is so high that focus fire essentially guarantees that snipers will engage only things they counter, barring a chance for a one-hit kill.

They one shot fighters and bombers without the focus fire too so what's the difference? Besides sometimes shooting ships they don't have bonus damage for?

[TechSY730]

They one shot fighters and bombers without the focus fire too so what's the difference?

In the one shot case, not much.
However, in the not so one shot case (say, Mk. I snipers vs Mk. IV bombers), the difference can be quite visible. Yes, in both cases, they will prefer what they have bonuses on, but in the focus fire, they will all work together to take one bombers out (or if that would lead to overkill, as many as it would take to kill one bomber, and then the rest focus on something else they have a bonus against, repeat until all snipers have gotten their targets)
Without focus fire, they are just as likely to all pick different bombers, which in this case, may result in none of the Mk. IV bombers dieing.

[pheonix89]

Snipers' base damage sucks. Sniper shooting ships they don't have damage bonuses for would thus make them "suck". That's what focus fire could make them do. It would make the Snipers shoot ships they don't have damage bonuses for more often. Why would I want my Snipers to do 63333 damage on a Missile Frigate when they could do 379998 damage on a Bomber?

Focus fire makes them evaluate how many shots it would take them to kill each potential target (factoring in current health of the target too), and basically sort them by that (ascending), and suppresses the logic elsewhere that causes ships to prefer targets that are targetted by fewer other ships.

As keith said, thats not how it works. Focus fire prioritizes kills over efficiency.  With it on, Snipers will ALWAYS engage bombers first, because they oneshot an equal mark bomber. The only time snipers won't engage an equal mark bomber is if there is something else that will die to one hit, and the tie-breaker picks it. I assume that the anti-overkill logic remains in between snipers and sniper-types (sniper turrets, spire railguns) to prevent wasted instant shots. A mark 1 sniper needs 5 hits to drop a core bomber, and the 5th hit is massive overkill. It also needs 5 hits to drop a Mk1 missile frigate. Therefore, even with the most extreme case possible, against triangle ships it goes to the tiebreaker. Any other scenario (higher mark sniper, higher mark frigate, lower mark bomber) gets the bomber attacked. The multiplier is so high that focus fire essentially guarantees that snipers will engage only things they counter, barring a chance for a one-hit kill.

They one shot fighters and bombers without the focus fire too so what's the difference? Besides sometimes shooting ships they don't have bonus damage for?

In case you missed what I was explictly saying, that only happens if they would kill the thing they dont get bonuses against FASTER. Which requires that the non-bonus target be incredibly squishy or heavily damaged, and that the bonus target is incredibly high-end. Focus fire makes them PRIORITIZE KILLS.

Sorry about the caps, but you have three people including the head dev explaining that you're wrong and you keep saying the same thing. It's slightly annoying me.

[Kahuna]

Sorry about the caps, but you have three people including the head dev explaining that you're wrong and you keep saying the same thing. It's slightly annoying me.

I'm not saying the same thing over and over again.
Brb gonna go give a ****.

(mod edit: language, it's been coming from several posters lately and I let it go hoping it would resolve itself, but in retrospect that was a mistake, apologies for the lack of consistency)

[Hearteater]

Targeting is probably one of the most complex things that happen behind the scenes in AI Wars.  Confusion on how it works is entirely understandable.  No need to turn the thread all negative.

[pheonix89]

Sorry about the caps, but you have three people including the head dev explaining that you're wrong and you keep saying the same thing. It's slightly annoying me.

I'm not saying the same thing over and over again.
Brb gonna go give a ****.

I'm sorry. I really shouldn't have made that comment at the end.

[Kahuna]

Sorry about the caps, but you have three people including the head dev explaining that you're wrong and you keep saying the same thing. It's slightly annoying me.

I'm not saying the same thing over and over again.
Brb gonna go give a ****.

I'm sorry. I really shouldn't have made that comment at the end.

It's ok bro

[Kahuna]

Um, Kahuna, I don't think a factor of two difference against 4 hull types, even if they are very common, is quite enough compensation for half vs everything else. I don't think snipers are bad, per say, just almost completely worse than sentinals.

I just realized that majority of people think like this. A little bit of everything is always better than a lot of few things (specializing in something). This is also why Left 4 Dead is mostly unplayable on the highest difficulty level. The only/best way to survive is to work together and move as a team. Kinda like a SWAT team. Everyone moves forward in a line next to a wall and everyone covers 1 direction. This way everyone covers each other and every direction is covered. When I try to explain that.. they say "everyone cover every direction!". Then everyone except me ends up running around the map alone like Somalis with AKs. I call people like that "bot brains".

As I said "Snipers will destroy Fighters and Bombers and thus protect Bombers and Missile Frigates". Snipers wont destroy Missile Frigates but they don't need to. Bombers are good at doing that. Sentinels aren't bad at all. They're good.

When I have Snipers as a bonus ship..
2 ship types (Snipers and Missile Frigates) destroy Lights (Fighters)
1 ship type (Bombers) destroys big guys and Artillery (Missile Frigates). I unlock MarkII Bombers so I kinda have 2 ship types destroying big guys and Artillery.
2 ship types (Fighters and Snipers) destroy Polycrystals (Bombers)

2 ship "types" (MarkI and II Bombers) protect Fighters by destroying Artillery (Missile Frigates)
2 ship types (Fighters and Snipers) protect Artillery (Missile Frigates) by destroying Polycrystals (Bombers)
2 ship types (Missile Frigates and Snipers) protect Bombers by destoying Lights (Fighters)

Now my fleet is balanced and everything is covered.

"Oh by Sentinels cover and destroy EVERYTHING!"
Yes, but no.