Cybran T2PD having problems targeting and not firing at targets in range

I'll keep this short (EDIT too late) because I need to go to sleep soon. Most egregious issue near bottom (marked under page break) relating to PD categorically not shooting at targets in range.

Last few weeks I have noticed a few times playing as cybran that the T2PD will have issues tracking, hitting, switching targets, or even not shooting at all at units in range (radar AND visual). This often causes issues, as PD you expect to be performing at 'x' level are sometimes performing far below what you expect and can set you behind/lose you games. Sidenote: I also don't know at this point if cybran PD missing targets is intentional or not design wise, but its annoying since it is supposed to be a laser beam that doesn't miss, and it misses a lot for the worst T2 PD in the game stats wise.

I just played a mapgen game which shows the targeting issue quite clearly. Please do not judge my terrible gameplay as its late, I was tired, and I wanted to do a meme strat since I thought our team would lose if I played standard.

https://replay.faforever.com/17011311

Watch my ACU drop from min 11 onward. You will notice early on the T2PD seemed to be fine. Near 11:40 onwards you notice a few time the PD wiggles between targets (losing firing time) then seems to settle down to normal behavior. Again at 11:58 the PD stops shooting so it can to turn to the left. Then at 12:10 or so you will see PD randomly stop shooting upwards (at fervors, a good target), rotate 150 degrees down and left to shoot at some aurora, then rotate back up to shoot at the fervors that never left range(while getting crushed by the fervor). Is this targeting behavior intended? Perhaps due to fog of war? it seems glitchy and counter productive.

Cybran PD is also prioritizing t2 flak and t2 MML over fervors

I could honestly look past all this if it were not for what came next (clickbait title I know, but this is the main reason for the post)

The worse offense was at Min 14:30, the T2 PD just... stop shooting. You see this start when an engi enters range and the PD does not fire. It just continues from there. Fervors enter range, no pew pew. Targets are in radar range, power is on, no pew pew. Fervors start to kill my shit... no pew pew.

Min 14:55, A NEW T2 PD I make is freshly built. It kills a fervor, then joins its 5 friends in, you guessed it, NOT SHOOTING. This is now 30 seconds of hold fire. Its looking bad.

Min 15:20, I notice I am getting shot by an enemy PD, and I also notice my dudes are not firing (50 seconds idle). I MANUALLY TARGET THE PD, kill it, and after the PD goes back to not shooting at shit.

I then proceed to lose the firebase, and soon after the game. Total time 5-6 PD were not shooting? Over 60 seconds. That's between 20k and 30k damage not dealt over flat open terrain at targets in range and in radar coverage.

Why my PD not shoot?

I'm literally working on fixing this at the moment. Let me explain to you what is happening. These are the target priorities of the Cerberus:

            TargetPriorities = {
                'EXPERIMENTAL',
                'SNIPER',
                'ANTISHIELD',
                'MOBILE TECH3 ARTILLERY',
                'MOBILE TECH2 SILO',
                'STRUCTURE SHIELD',
                'STRUCTURE TECH3 DEFENSE DIRECTFIRE',
                '(STRUCTURE * TECH2 * DEFENSE - ANTIMISSILE)',
                'MOBILE TECH1 ARTILLERY',
                'MOBILE TECH3',
                'MOBILE TECH2',
                'MOBILE TECH1',
                'COMMAND',
                '(ALLUNITS - SPECIALLOWPRI)',
            },

Note how tech 1 artillery is higher than regular tech 1 units. That means that if previously only regular tech 1 was in range, but then suddenly a tech 1 artillery is then it will retarget.

Watch my ACU drop from min 11 onward. You will notice early on the T2PD seemed to be fine. Near 11:40 onwards you notice a few time the PD wiggles between targets (losing firing time) then seems to settle down to normal behavior.

The white line represents your intel range. Anything beyond it are blips, and therefore they have the lowest priority. The tech 1 artillery get into vision one by one, causing the Cerberus to go from a t1 artillery, to a tank, to a t1 artillery, to a tank, as the blips get into vision range. As the majority of tanks are to the west, the Cerberus aims all the way to the west, just to aim somewhere north again as the artillery are identified (they're no longer blips).

Then at 12:10 or so you will see PD randomly stop shooting upwards (at fervors, a good target), rotate 150 degrees down and left to shoot at some aurora, then rotate back up to shoot at the fervors that never left range(while getting crushed by the fervor)

Same situation as before - you simply didn't had the intel on them. Blips have the lowest priority as the game literally doesn't know what they are.

The worse offense was at Min 14:30, the T2 PD just... stop shooting. You see this start when an engi enters range and the PD does not fire. It just continues from there. Fervors enter range, no pew pew. Targets are in radar range, power is on, no pew pew. Fervors start to kill my shit... no pew pew.

Ironically, it is the intel that made them ignore other targets. Weapons have a tracking radius that allows them to prepare for higher value targets. This is useful on mobile units, as you're likely moving towards your target. This is broken on static structures, as the turret can't move.

The green circle is the tracking radius (it is 15% on a Cerberus) and if you look at the priority table then tech 2 mobile silo's (mobile missile launchers) have one of the highest priorities. As such, the turrets prepare to fire onto them but by all means they never get in range.

All of this will be fixed on FAF Develop within a week, and released in roughly two weeks to the main branch.

I love you Jip. Both for the explanation and the fixing. But mostly for your dashing good looks and charm. Thanks for the writeup.

It feels like the target priorities are way too specific in most situations and thats what fucks it up. ML's and GC's are the perfect example for that when they sometimes have 1/6th of the supposed dps just cause they are doing acrobatics trying to find their targets.

Wonder what it would look like if u only have a few basic priorities set up and nothing too specific

@thewheelie said in Cybran T2PD having problems targeting and not firing at targets in range:

It feels like the target priorities are way too specific in most situations and thats what fucks it up. ML's and GC's are the perfect example for that when they sometimes have 1/6th of the supposed dps just cause they are doing acrobatics trying to find their targets.

Wonder what it would look like if u only have a few basic priorities set up and nothing too specific

That is something I'm looking into to. The basic priorities should be as simple as possible so that the user knows what to expect. I'll be making the target priorities of all point defenses the same, for example.

@thewheelie said in Cybran T2PD having problems targeting and not firing at targets in range:

It feels like the target priorities are way too specific in most situations and thats what fucks it up. ML's and GC's are the perfect example for that when they sometimes have 1/6th of the supposed dps just cause they are doing acrobatics trying to find their targets.

Wonder what it would look like if u only have a few basic priorities set up and nothing too specific

If you use the "Advanced Target Priorities" mod and giving the GC a priority of "units," would that make all combat units equally targeted and ignore everything else (until it has no combat units left to target)?

Or would it still prioritize some types of units over other types?

@jip said in Cybran T2PD having problems targeting and not firing at targets in range:

I'll be making the target priorities of all point defenses the same

But we may want a slow-firing PD like oblivion to have different priorities than a Cerberus. A Cerberus would clean up LABs nicely, and do pretty well against light arty, compared to an Oblivion.

I think it is more relevant to provide a consistent behavior between the factions. You can always tweak your turrets priorities using a UI mod like advanced target priorities.

Btw id like to highlight that loyalists are no longer reverting tmls. For about 5 games ive been noticing that loyalists do not reflact tmls.

@yellownoob said in Cybran T2PD having problems targeting and not firing at targets in range:

Btw id like to highlight that loyalists are no longer reverting tmls. For about 5 games ive been noticing that loyalists do not reflact tmls.

I'll look into this. You can also make an issue on Github:

• https://github.com/FAForever/fa/issues/new/choose

Or report issues in the #game-bug-reporting channel on the official FAF Discord.

@jip said in Cybran T2PD having problems targeting and not firing at targets in range:

@thewheelie said in Cybran T2PD having problems targeting and not firing at targets in range:

It feels like the target priorities are way too specific in most situations and thats what fucks it up. ML's and GC's are the perfect example for that when they sometimes have 1/6th of the supposed dps just cause they are doing acrobatics trying to find their targets.

Wonder what it would look like if u only have a few basic priorities set up and nothing too specific

That is something I'm looking into to. The basic priorities should be as simple as possible so that the user knows what to expect. I'll be making the target priorities of all point defenses the same, for example.

Well, the user doesn't expect to turn the turret for 90% of the time while taking fire from everything else on the other side.

I think this whole messed up target priorities thing is why I see less and less and less successful T4 land attacks. Although the buildtime thing also helped with that.

Maybe that is also why it seems the Sera T4 bot is used more often... as it's dead weapon doesn't suffer from the same problems, hehe.

Well, the user doesn't expect to turn the turret for 90% of the time while taking fire from everything else on the other side.

I think this whole messed up target priorities thing is why I see less and less and less successful T4 land attacks. Although the buildtime thing also helped with that.

Maybe that is also why it seems the Sera T4 bot is used more often... as it's dead weapon doesn't suffer from the same problems, hehe.

I think you're correct - the overly complicated target priorities can cause units to not actually do damage for a long time. As an example, a monkeylord that tries to attack a brick to the south and then a brick to the north while all of the remainder of the army is tech 2. All of the tech 2 will be skipped.

Same why the colossus can no longer walk and fire - it tries to aim at tech 3 units that, by all means, can end up behind him while there are a lot of valid targets in front of him.

Sadly, this is a balance team matter. If it were up to me I'd simplify all the target priorities to 4 - 6 elements, maybe even less in some situations. Allow mods like ATP and the snipe mode to take care of the rest.

The problem described in this topic is fixed with this pull request which is live on the FAF Develop game type.

Yet another reason to play FAF Develop , besides the other reasons to do so:

• Improved mass fabricator behavior and visual indications
• No more notoriously slow ASF battles, and a general performance increase all around
• various small UI related fixes

We're in dire need of people play testing on FAF Develop to gather data. The game type can be chosen by the host when creating a game. All players that join that game will download the correct files accordingly. If you have feedback, bug reports or just want to say hi to the game team - use the #game-bug-reporting channel of the official Discord server.

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