Agility of TIE Bombers (Rescue Corvette Karinne)

[Former user]

I compared the mission in the original game and XWVM. I think the agility of the TIE Bombers is higher than the in the original game. With the same control setup they are harder to hit in XWVM. I can't quantify that in numbers, but the T/Bs break off much faster if shot upon, jerking around. It's hard to describe...

[Rob Pilkington]

My impression is that all fighter-like craft seem to be better at evading when you are trying to get a lock than they should be. They seem to know right when you're about to line up and then they jink.

I'm not sure where the Ace and Top Ace levels should be at (the Y-wing isn't that great at dogfighting to begin with), but the lower levels really seem to be better at evading than they should be.

[Sascha Schieferdecker]

I agree. After playing some more yesterday, I noticed the T/Fs show the same behaviour.

[David Esparza Guerrero]

Are all AI ships too good at evading?

[Dez E]

One thing I've noticed is that, as Rob says, the ships seem to know exactly when you're about to line up - this happens in the original game, but I believe only for TopAce - but in XWVM happens for a wider range of AI skills.

Related to this, in Y-Wing historical mission 1, where both T/F groups are Officer skill, in X-Wing 98 you can observe that when evading, there is a period where the craft tend to fly in a straight line for a couple of seconds before moving again, which doesn't happen in XWVM (which seems to be one evade immediately followed by another, if the player is close to targeting the craft)

[J. King]

I can certainly agree about TIE bombers in particular: they turn significantly more sluggishly in X-Wing and are easier to hit while both you and your target are turning. Moreover, I think TIEs in general tend to favour keeping a greater distance from you in XWVM than in X-Wing.

[David Esparza Guerrero]

There are two different situations when the AI reacts and decides to dodge in XWVM. If you find this doesn't match X-Wing perfectly and another behavior would be better, please do not hesitate to propose it:

• When hit by laser fire, if over certain threshold, the ship will enter evade mode. Evade mode makes the ship choose random waypoints that are perpendicular to the direction their attacker is facing. That is, never in front of their attacker. This has the effect of going out of their attacker field of view. Evade mode lasts 6 seconds, and over this period, the ships changes waypoint every 3 seconds, so it flies to 3 different waypoints, always perpendicular to the attacker's vector.

• When jousting an enemy (that is, when both are facing each other and at combat range), the ship will swerve if it detects its rival is starting to fire their weapons. This prevents two jousting flight groups to obliterate each other in matter of seconds.

These reactions are always decided by the AI ship whenever they think. Higher AI ranks think more often (TopAce thinks every 250 ms, Rookie thinks every 1.5 seconds), so ships can evade better and choose better waypoints the more often they think.

[David Esparza Guerrero]

Rebalance: Lower AI ranks are more impatient with target locks and fire missiles when they aren't totally red. Rebalance: Bombers in combat reduce their speed to 60. This fixes issue #30: TIE bombers destroy Karinne when they shouldn't. Rebalance: Lower AI ranks change direction much less often while evading. This fixes issue #22: Agility of TIE Bombers (Rescue Corvette Karinne). Rebalance: AI fire their weapons in linked mode when they are closer than 250m from their targets (from 500). No good firing angle is considered anymore.

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