Steamrunner crewed by failures from the STA?

posted on June 5th, 2010, 12:42 pm

Been playing feds a bit more often, and noticed something with the Steamrunner.  It's crew is a bunch of morons.  You issue a firing order, and they close in.  And I'm not talking about like the Serkas closing to long range when they don't have to, or even medium.  The stupid things will do everything in their power to close to short.

In a ship made of tissue paper, it's suicide, and makes the steamrunner my far and away least favorite ship due to constantly fighting them to keep them from committing suicide if ever given an attack order.  It's to the point where I leave them at my base on no movement autonomy so they'll snipe at incoming fleets, and that's a damned shame.

posted on June 5th, 2010, 12:47 pm

I've not noticed the Steamrunners being any worse than any other ship. The game probably just doesn't like you, because my Steamrunners mostly stay at a minumim of long-range.

posted on June 5th, 2010, 1:11 pm

What irritates me is when i activate the tricobalt launcher and it switches targets so i end up wasting the first 2 shots

posted on June 5th, 2010, 1:33 pm

activate the tricobalt launcher? that's its main weapon. do you mean the triloader special? yes that target switch is annoying.

posted on June 5th, 2010, 6:51 pm

You can avoid the Steamrunner closing in on it's targets by setting the Steamie's movement autonomy to low.  When you do that, any vessel set that way will stay at it's max range .

posted on June 5th, 2010, 8:27 pm

I haven't had this problem because I put my construction ships on no movement autonomy before I even build my first station. The regulation is then carried through everything else. I rarely see ships try flying in too close because of this. Though I would like a game setting that automatically sets the movement autonomy to zero if activated in the game setup/host area.

posted on June 5th, 2010, 8:54 pm

I've had this problem, it wasn't too bad since it was a single Generix or something my Steamie and Excel II were attacking, but it was damn annoying to see the Steamrunner leave the green nebula in favor of the open space south of a heavily protected expansion with staryard.

Maybe if the Steamie gets a short-range phaser added like has been suggested it would actually have a reason to go up close. A fix to make it close to arty range only would be much better though.

posted on June 6th, 2010, 1:11 am

Or even bloody medium, where it's still covered by Ambassadors and Monsoons up at short.  That much would seriously increase survivability!

posted on June 7th, 2010, 1:39 pm

Hmmm.... I seen a stock code called "targetRange =" which tells the computer "this is the prefered range of attacking with this weapon". What if that was to be placed in arty ships so that they don't go much closer than long range.

posted on June 8th, 2010, 3:38 am

By far the Steamrunner is a weak ship, i feel the Ambassador would make a good long range weapons platform.

posted on June 8th, 2010, 3:53 am

Source? Sounds like your inner 'Ambassador fanboy' is getting involved.

posted on June 8th, 2010, 4:21 am

I've had the same issue of the Steamrunner always closing into a very close range.... then again I always have my ships on High Movement Autonomy  I still think by default the Steamrunner should be an average phaser armed ship and then it's special switches into Artillery mode... 

posted on June 8th, 2010, 12:44 pm

Or insert the dang "targetRange =" code. I tested this on a few other ships and they almost never go closer than the specified range. Because that code says, "This is your prefered range stupid, don't need to go any closer."

Maybe inserting this will fix a similar problem with the hyper arty when firing its torpedo.

posted on June 9th, 2010, 11:40 pm

i think the dev's should have a look again at the movement autonomy cuz even on green alert they act as if they are on red or yellow... >_>;;

I wouldn't be shocked if you have green special but act as if they have red lol... <_<;;;;