I can tell you what their intended enemy seems to be. The swamp critters for HV and the random lone drones in space for SV. I could argue that SVs can hypothetically be used for fighting planetary POIs, but since I could achieve that only by cheesing the targeting of the plasma turrets flying around them in circles (the targeting clearly doesn't take the derivative of velocity into account), I will not.
One thing that could object the currently most logical "why don't I just bomb it into stone age" tactic is the economical factor. If the ammunition for the big guns is expensive (like, x10000 more expensive, dealing x100 more damage than now), and the POI actually contains something valuable (instead of a few random pieces of scrap and turrets that the player is forbidden to collect, a dozen of useful devices and half a dozen stacks of POI-relevant resources), then maybe it will make more sense for the player to try to minimize the damage to the POI -- because all that is left is for him to take. In this scheme, the most profitable (and the most dangerous) path is to go on foot. But it should not be enforced in any way. Every approach in between Rambo and total orbital annihilation should be possible. It should be up to the player to decide which approach to take, with every one having its advantages and disadvantages.
Some sort of counter attack would help. Maybe a riff on the ventilator that detects when it's no longer in an enclosed room and triggers a big attack by QRF troop transports and fast drones. Infiltrate on foot, and they'll likely do nothing. Blast a hole in the wall, and you get things to fight with your attack vessel. It gives the POI something of a variable response. We just have to make sure nobody gets the bright idea to trap the player in a room while such a trigger is exposed by explosive blocks and QRF spawns destroy their ship on the ground.
It would be cool to have a melee counter too, where when they attack you can dodge or punch them/hit them with your weapon/sword
The only downside to the brute force approach with vessels is the loot you lose to timers when you're blowing your way right through the walls to the core IF you actually know where it's located. Not sure if you can just set a turret to core to find it, haven't tried that yet but there's a thought
That'd be cool to have "intel" bits on datapads or the PDA, however it's always good to bring a sniper rifle to do a bit of reconnaissance before entering if it's safe to do so
Just started the Derelict Station proper and enemies have started spawning. I'm remaining grounded, for reasons of course. I'm not actually seeing the enemies spawn, which is good, no popping in right in front of me, or worse, behind me. However, I am experiencing one odd issue... Due to some poorly-timed reloads, I've had to run from a couple of enemies, who I've then lost. Returning, they're nowhere to be seen, until they're right on top of me. It appears their navigation skills are poor (known) but this results in them clipping into certain blocks so they're not visible any more, they then ambush me, emerging from a wall. Wondered what was happening at first, then one popped out of a wall just as I was turning around. To be clear, this does not appear to be a fresh spawn, rather one that was chasing me earlier and got stuck. Abominations are still tricky to hit for two reasons, one, the hit box issue and, two, their weird zig-zag run as they don't turn naturally, rather they turn 90 degrees instantly and are travelling along their new vector. If they had more natural movement (momentum) it'd be better, but I suspect this is a base game thing, not something that can be modded. Will continue to go through the POI, time permitting.
@Scoob I've noticed enemies in RE like to use the zigzagging "serpentine, serpentine!" (from the Inlaws movie a long time ago iirc) tactic to evade your shots. It's not just abominations. Given enough distance, bugs will do it, dogs will do it, gigas will do it, etc. I find it extremely annoying and stupid personally. Love the mod, but little stuff like this gets under my skin. Perhaps too much so.
Trying to shoot an abomination be like: Personally I kinda like that they don't just charge directly at you in a straight line, though I can definitely understand the frustration, especially combined with an apparently hit-or-miss hitbox. I don't think the latter is strictly an RE issue however. Would be interesting to have different shotguns with different chokes: as in different pellet spreads. When they get close, it would be nice to be able to switch to a sawed-off shotgun or something with a wider spray that hopefully would still hit the enemy even with slightly lesser aim. I had assumed that's what the flamethrower was for, but I'm probably wrong there. (Mainly I wanted an excuse to post that gif but anyway)
Oh? The AI decides of its own accord how to act? Are you saying it wrote itself? Please explain further.
I'm betting if you stood directly North, South, East, or West from the AI, it would run in a straight line towards you. The zig zagging is the AI trying to keep to one of those 4 directions as it moves towards you. That is one of the reasons bases are locked into those facings. Unless things have changed since the last time I played, which is possible.
The AI is not customizable. Each creature type is controlled by a hardcoded AI controller. It's the same one used in vanilla. The behaviour isn't moddable; Only the distance they see, the size of their viewing arc, their movement speed and attack min/max range. If you look at the sneak peek video eleon did a few versions ago for the improved raptor AI, they weave/zig-zag. Abomination and Raptors run on the same PredatorAI controller iirc.
More likely its the AI attempting to turn toward the their target but over or undershooting for whatever reason. AI spots a target -> tries to turn to face them but over/under shoots -> moves forward anyway -> recalculates and changes heading again. Rinse and repeat. GPS at its finest. It could even be the same underlying issue causing enemies being able to shoot you even though they are facing the wrong way.
Interesting. I guess I never noticed this behavior before this recent RE playthrough, and incorrectly attributed it to the mod. I apologize for the incorrect assumption. It does make me wonder if it's always been this way. I've played multiple versions from the beginning (2015 I think?) to present day, and never noticed it before. Maybe I'm just not as observant as I think I am.
I think the zig-zag behaviour is fine in principle, however, how they instantly face the new vector and are instantly travelling at the prior speed along that new vector is awful. I think NPC's in the game need physics, actual mass and inertia to them, so they correctly transition to the new movement vector. This might help with the constant clipping too I'd imagine, if they were proper physical objects. I don't know how easy it is to enable physics on such objects in Unity. This movement and poor hit detection can really infuriate at times. One Abomination, I shot several times with the T2 Shotgun - on target, I fire just after they insta-turn - and dealt zero damage each time. The final shot was a one-hit kill. This can often times catch me out. I see several weaker melee enemies approaching me, I know I have more shots than enemies, with a few to spare, but still end up getting stuck in a reload, and having to retreat, as my shots don't register as a hit. It's funny, the T2 Shotgun is a one-hit one-kill weapon against many foes, if the game counts the hit correctly. However, for reliable killing, often a much lower per-shot damage automatic weapon is faster, due to the multiple rapid chances to hit. While this is perhaps less of a tactical issue than I was originally talking about, it is pretty significant overall. I mean, the tactic of shooting something and actually hitting it is sort of THE core tactic, isn't it? lol. If it were me, I'd LOSE the zig-zag behaviour until it can be implemented better.
I tend to agree with your sentiments. I think that Invisible spawners have been misused and abused too often and the result is precisely as you describe: not-fun gameplay, and honestly not even "challenging" gameplay. I have not played vanilla for more than 20 hours since probably . . . I dunno 2019 at latest? I've been a strictly Reforged Eden player for years. I had taken a six month break from the game and just came back to it in the past couple weeks. So far, I have not done many POIs, and the scenario had a major update sometime in the last six months, so I cannot really comment on the dynamic in that scenario at this point in time. With that said, I would characterize the issue you describe in RE when I was last playing a lot (last fall) to be "not terrible." There were definitely POIs where this dynamic occurred. I can remember one core room in a POI in particular where they just kept spawning in on top of me and a buddy and it was just ridiculous. There were POIs where it was an issue, and there were POIs where it was not so much an issue. I had sort of figured out ones I enjoyed and pretty much stuck to doing those. Sad when some POIs are just "best avoided," and I doubt that the creators of them intended it to be that way, but it is what it is. I seem to recall some heated, and polarized discussions on this topic at various points over the years and it seems that those who advocate for this type of design may not have changed their views at all, and those of us who dislike it certainly have not. I shall soldier on in RE trying to die as little as possible and get as far along as possible, maybe even to those fabled "end-game" things I've never quite made it to. One train of thought I've found myself entertaining more and more, though not yet in any committal way is: to just do it myself, meaning: build a scenario where there are few if any Invisible Spawners in the POIs, and zero "Invulnerable Spawners" (I think those don't really exist? But are part of a construct that has an Admin Core?) and as few Admin Cores as possible. There are game mechanics I would like to see introduced, but I suspect they would require plugins and everyone seems to think the API is "too limited" to do much with. On top of that I have not written a lick of code for probably 4 years and it was mostly C++ with me not C#.
I wanted to comment on the part I highlighted. If you hose down all the walls, floors and ceilings, and assuming the base doesn't have an Admin Core, it is possible to destroy any spawner isn't it? In the past that is how adapted to those bases that seemed to have a plethora of invisible spawners and it worked in those few instances where I did it.
Visible versus invisible spawners don't make much of a difference. They will still spawn the enemies when properly placed before the player can destroy them. The only difference is you need to take the time and ammo to blow them up, actually making the whole experience more of a hassle. Fun fact: almost no POIs have visible spawners that are set to "respawn" meaning you don't even need to destroy those, either. You can leave visible spawners alone in 90% or more of POIs and they won't do anything except bug you. Too often people focus on the wrong things being the problem. They think invisible spawners or admin cores are the problems when those have nothing to do with it. You can have an admin core POI that is very fun and rewarding and a non-admin core POI that is a complete slog full of deathtraps. You can have a room full of visible spawners that drop enemy after enemy on top of a player with little way of dealing with them or you can have a room with 2 invisible, non-respawning spawners that spawn before the player has even opened the door.
Wow. THIS is a work of art essay. Could not have said it better myself. EVERYONE who loves this game needs to digest this. ADDIT: although I disagree about 'never running POIs' anymore. I run them pretty often once I get setup, despite the limitations you describe. But I'm highly selective and I use lots of cheese. I RARELY ever follow the obvious path
