Source
r/Stellaris•
NeFace

Some Observations on Targeting Preference.

Discussion

I did some testing for a recent thread on whether weapon mounts target individually or together.

Some of it is pretty common knowledge (plasma like to shoot things with no shields), but some of it I found surprising and goes against what I've seen other people say.

TL;DR

All mounts, including Strike Craft and Torpedoes, other than XL appear to fire upon the same target unless that target is out of range of the mount, in which case the lower range mount will select a separate target based on the targeting preference of the rest of the ship.

Test scenario: A battleship or cruiser was outfitted with a range of mounts and pitted against three battleships, two with shields one without.

6 Large Disruptor/Plasma Battleships.

1 Disruptor, 5 Plasma - Shoots at thing with no shields until dead.
2 Disruptor, 4 Plasma - Shoots at thing with shields until dead.
3 Disruptor, 3 Plasma - Shoots at thing with shield until shields are down, then switched to another target with shields.

All mounts fire upon the same target, the target is chosen as a result of the combined ‘preference’ of all mounts. It also appears that the increased ‘stickiness’ that came with 1.8 isn’t sticky enough to make a lot of disruptors keep a target once shields are down.

XL Battleships.

Tachyon, KA, Plasma - All target battleship with no shields.
Tachyon, KA, Plasma, Disruptor - Tachyon fires at ship with no shields, everything else fires at ship with shields. After the shields went down the Tachyon switched target.
Giga Cannon, 4 Plasma - Giga picked a shielded target, Plasma picked an unshielded target. Giga did not switch target after shields were down.

XL mounts can pick different targets from the other mounts. Giga cannon is more ‘sticky’ than it used to be.

Torpedoes/Plasma Cruisers.

3 Energy Torpedo and 2 Energy Torpedo setups (rest small/medium plasma) both chose a target with shields and switched target once the shields were down.
1 Energy Torpedo, 2S Plasma, 3M Plasma picked a target with shields and mostly stuck to that target, sometimes would switch targets after doing significant hull damage.
3 Devastator Torpedo steps picked targets with shields and would not switch targets, unless the rest of the mounts were Disruptors which would cause a change in target after shields were stripped.

Again all mounts fire on the same target. It is difficult to make E-Torps keep the same target after removing the targets shields.

Strike Craft Cruisers.

Bomber/Fighter, 3x M Plasma - Strike Craft and Plasma targeted the battleship with no shields.
Bomber/Fighter, 3x M Gauss - Strike Craft and Gauss targeted the battleship with shields, both switched target after stripping shields.

Surprisingly, strike craft targets seem to be determined by the rest of the mounts.

Battleships with different sized mounts.

A variety of iterations of 2 small, 2 medium, and 2 large were tested, e.g. 2x S Disruptor, 2x M Plasma, 2x L Laser or 2x S Disruptor, 4x L Plasma.
In all designed tests all mounts picked the same target. This continued to be the case against mixed fleets of different ship sizes!
In the two examples above shielded ships were targeted and the targets were kept after shields were stripped.

Test Scenario: A battleship equipped with varying mounts vs. 4 battleships, 2 with Giga Cannons, one with shields one without and 2 with small Laser, one with shields and one without.
By equipping the ‘target’ battleships with weapons of different sizes we can dictate the range at which engagements occur.

1 KA, 1 small Plasma - KA targeted the long-range ship equipped with Giga Cannon and Shields, Plasma targeted the short range ship equipped with laser and shields.
1 Bomber, 1 small Laser - Bombers targeted the long-range ship equipped with Giga Cannon and Shields, laser targeted the short range ship equipped with laser and shields.

Mounts will choose a separate target due to range restrictions, though it appears that the target preference of the ship is kept, i.e. the small Plasma attacked a target with shields although there was a target without shields in range.

Shortfalls.

These are models and as such behaviour during in-game fleet battles may vary. Some odd behaviour was observed against fleets containing a variety of ship sizes. One test saw a preference to strip the shields of a destroyer and then target a cruiser followed by a battleship before finishing off the destroyer.

The battleship without shields was equipped with full armor. While including a ship without shields or armour in the tests didn't appear to change the results, it is possible that some of the targeting preferences were a result of armour rather than shields.

I haven't looked at whether a low-range mount will switch to the target of the longer-range mounts once it comes within range.

Posted Oct 23, 2017, 10:59 AM UTC · edited

1113
thelunararmyOne Vision•

Does the ship AI not also play a part in their behavior?

5
NeFaceOPConsecrated Worlds•

They definitely play a part in whether the ship rushes up or hangs back. When it comes to target preference I'm not sure, they could do. I only tested Battleships and Cruisers as they give access to all mount types.

Would be interesting to see if a large/medium/small mount on a Destroyer has a different preference than the same large/medium/small mount on a Cruiser or Battleship.

Would also be interesting to see if the preference smaller mounts have for smaller ships is a size thing or a accuracy/tracking-evasion thing.

3
thelunararmyOne Vision•

From what I've read L-slot Destroyers with KA shoot down shields and then swap targets, which could make them invaluable against Shield-heavy empires/crises.

3
NeFaceOPConsecrated Worlds•

1.8 Reduced the tendency of weapons to switch targets after shooting down shields, so that may not be as true as it used to be. I'll try to test it later.
In tests with 6 KA Battleships I didn't see much target switching after shields were taken down, so it would be very interesting if KA Destroyers did switch targets.

edit - KA Destroyers still seem to switch targets after stripping shields, even when also equipped with a medium plasma, but sometimes erratically. Couldn't reproduce the results of 6 KA Battleships keeping the same target after stripping shields. KAs on Tachyon 4L KA Battleships do keep target after stripping shields, though.

6
asswhorlToxic•

Actually that behaviour makes them useless.

2
Krakanu•

So, does this mean that ships should be designed with a singular purpose (anti-shields OR anti-armor) and not a mix of the two? Otherwise it sounds like you will have weapons forced to shoot at targets they are ineffective against (minus XL weapons).

For example, it seems like one should avoid putting disruptors/plasma (or E torps/plasma) together on the same ship as they will both be force to fire at the same target.

I'm curious to hear how this affects missiles and whether they prioritize/avoid ships with point defense or if they are indifferent (since nearby ships can still shoot down the missiles anyways). Also, do missiles fire at the same targets as the rest of the loadout or are they independent?

It is also interesting to hear that strike craft simply mimic the behavior of the rest of the loadout. This means one should use a loadout that minimizes target switching to avoid strike craft spending most of their time flying between targets instead of actually firing.

3
NeFaceOPConsecrated Worlds•

  1. I feel like having one class is the better option, due to focus fire. Sure, that Disruptor on your 1-Dirsuptor 5-Plasma Battleship isn't firing optimally, but every bit of damage counts and the faster a ship goes down the less damage you take - snowballing into those ridiculous doomstack one-sided wins.
    I would be very happy to be proved wrong. I imagine that with the right ratio a mixed fleet could be better, as long as your specialist shield targeters don't get wiped and your ships built to target hull (most of the effective HP) start focusing down ships with no shields fast enough.
    It would be interesting to see if that Tachyon-2KA-2Plasma Battleship that appears to be so effective atm is as good as a mix of Tachyon-4Plasma & Tachyon-4KA.

  2. Interesting point RE: missiles & PD. Though I doubt it : ( I'll have to remember to have a look at it.
    I guess that missiles would not behave differently than any other mount/torpedoes, though their long range may result in different targets being picked I'd expect them to still follow the same target preference as the other mounts on the ship.

  3. Yes, but I think using loadouts which minimise switching is generally a good idea. Strike Craft may be less susceptible to targeting issues as their engage range is long enough to often kick in the apparent 'mounts may choose a seperate target within their range' rule

2
Krakanu•

I'm not sure I understand your first two sentences. You acknowledge that the weapon isn't firing optimally, then say every bit of damage counts, but since its not firing optimally, its hardly adding any extra damage. If it was of the same type as the rest of the ship's loadout, it would add more damage than a sub-optimal weapon. From what you posted, a single disruptor on a ship that is otherwise fully loaded with plasma, will always fire at unshielded targets. Which begs the question, why bother having it on that ship at all? Of course if this is the only ship type you have, then you need some kind of anti-shield weaponry, but why not just put it on a different ship entirely so that they can shoot the targets they are good against?

On your point about ratios: I feel like it is easier to fine tune the ratio of anti-shield ships vs anti-armor ships than it is to fine tune the loadout on a "kitchen sink" loadout. With different ship loadouts, you merely build more of whichever ship you need for a given situation. If you get the ratio right, then all your ships are doing 100% efficient damage. As you said, you run the risk of losing all your specialist ships of a certain type, but as long as your defensive setup on the ships is the same, there's no reason for one to be preferentially killed over the other (assuming same ship size).

With a kitchen sink loadout, you need to refit all of your ships depending on the ratio of anti-shield/anti-armor weapons you need versus your current opponent. Even if you get the weapon ratio right, your ships are still dealing sub-optimal damage because, at least part of the time, their weapons are forced to shoot at the 'wrong' target for the job. If the weapons were on separate ships, they could prioritize properly according to their strengths. Refitting ships is probably faster than building new ones, but I don't think you'd even have to pay that mineral cost/time in the first place if you had separate ship types.

3
NeFaceOPConsecrated Worlds•

True, there does seem to be a cognitive dissonance in what I'm saying.

Partly I'm trying to explain the (perhaps flawed) observation that mono-fleets often seem to perform better than mixed fleets. I've always heard that kitchen sink ships are better, maybe it's a mistake for me to try to justify that.

In situations where your anti-shield ships take out the shields of a handful of enemy ships and your anti-armor ships clean them up a mixed fleet should perform better. However, in the situations where your anti-armor ships don't switch to the shieldless targets quickly enough or can't keep up with your anti-shield ships you begin to effectively lose damage through shield regeneration - I'm not sure if this is enough to make up for the sub-optimal damage output of a kitchen sink fleet, though.

as long as your defensive setup on the ships is the same, there's no reason for one to be preferentially killed over the other

This is something I am interested in testing. All things equal, does target weaponry have an effect on targeting preference?

2
Krakanu•

Shields will recharge on a ship that is taking hull damage? Interesting, I was unaware of this. For some reason I thought they worked like Halo where your personal shields cannot recharge until you stop taking damage for a moment.

In that case it might make sense to have a bit of anti-shield weaponry on each ship, however, there is no guarantee that the anti-shield weapon will be the first to hit when the shield recharges a bit. You're just as likely for plasma to hit, remove the shield, and then the disruptor to hit on the hull after. I suppose this depends on the fire rates of the weapons and how many plasma hits it would take to drop the shields vs the disruptor, as well as the ships shield recharge rate. Too much for me to figure out.

Another thing to keep in mind is plasma only loses 33% dmg vs shields, whereas a disruptor hitting hull not only loses its 200% dmg bonus, but also is now affected by all of the target's armor (if it has any), whereas plasma doesn't care about armor for the most. Maybe someones already done the math on this, but I feel like the reason most fleets are plasma heavy is because its not super penalized by hitting shields, whereas a disruptor hitting the hull is like a wet noodle (provided the target has any armor).

Obviously there are other weapons besides these two, but I'm focusing on them mainly because they are highly specialized for opposite purposes, so mixing them would be the worst case scenario IMO. This is made even more hilarious because I often see the AI build disruptor/plasma ships. It seems the AI is hellbent on making the worst choices possible, from sector management to ship design...

2
BeePuncherAnonAvian•

Weird

2