My thoughts on the new, updated Railjack pilot AI

[Kraethius]

Hello everyone at DE and forums, I hope you're all having/had a pleasant day.

 

Now that the Pilot update has been out for some time I figured my thoughts and opinions have had enough time to mature. I'm quite an avid Railjack fan, and have played rather extensively pre- and post-update, having maxed Intrinsics pre-Corpus RJ and having about 20 spare sets for Sevagoth. But to the actual feedback.

The positive experiences:

• Right out the gate the pilot does indeed hold the ship steady when aiming at an enemy crewship (as discussed in a previous devstream).
• While aiming at a crewship the pilot still often keeps the RJ moving towards an objective, creating a nice illusion of an intelligent pilot making decisions and acting upon them.
• The pilot will destoy radiators, leaving you free to stay inside objectives. I'm not sure if this was actually introduced with the pilot upgrade, but I never had the AI do this pre-patch. Might've been just unlucky.
• The pilot flies as a rather swift speed, and while obviously not as fast as a human pilot boosting I never found myself waiting around to reach an objective.

 

Things that might benefit from some improvements:

• After the DevStream I mentioned earlier I was left with an impression that the pilot will hold the ship on what you're aiming at. This isn't the case, as they will focus on the nearest crewship. While the majority of times this isn't an issue at all, sometimes when two crewships approach from different sides which ship is nearest keeps changing, causing the pilot to shift targets constantly.
• The AI has some problems acquiring targets when near an objective, struggling to move into a position where you have LoS for Forward Artillery. This is partially due to the slow speed they orbit the objectives with.
• The AI has difficulties distinguishing priority targets, and destroying then in a timely manner. This is especially apparent with the Missile Base, where the pilot AI often gets stuck shooting the invulnerable turrets. The orbit velocity is rather low, which slows destroying the radiators since they don't make any particular effort to move towards them.
• If you use the crew camera they're often seen firing into the void of space, although I doubt that is what's actually happening and the outside area just isn't rendered when you're solo and inside an objective.

I'm not expecting them to replace a player as a pilot, so some things you'll just have to learn to play with or around. That said, I've really enjoyed the new pilot update and hope there might be a few more changes coming their way in the future.

Thank you for reading.

 

EDIT: My apologies, I should've made clear this is my experience in the Grineer RJ missions. The pilot seems to seek out priority targets such as security nodes better in the Corpus missions.

[(PSN)AbBaNdOn_]

Hmmm interesting.    Wasnt expecting the pilot to be the one to take out Radiatiors.    Did you use a gunner AI also???  

I like all the points you make.  Those do indeed sound like some frustrating issues that need fixed.   

Did they tweak engineer AI yet?

As a solo Railjacker(for the most part) I only have two things I need my crew to do.    Reload my damn artillery/fix my ship, and take out radiators in grineer maps!!!   I am on ps4 so I havent seen the improved Pilot yet.    But the point I was trying to make was that I like to do my own piloting.   I have only flown with gunner/engineer/defender.   I dont even have a pilot yet.    

Ideally I want a Gunner/Pilot combo so I can move them around as needed.   Like when I raid a POI, I will tell the gunner to be the pilot.   That way I dont have to worry about artillery or slingshot ever.   

What I would like to know is like is how effective each level of pilot is.   Like what are the minimum levels or AI crew to be effective.   Why benefit does Lv5 skills confer.   (Pretty sure gunnery is like damage and work way to well lol)

[Kraethius]

Sorry for the late reply but yes, I use a pilot/gunner/engineer-setup for all missions. After fighters are dead I sometimes make the gunner a defender.

As far as I know the only AI that has been tweaked is the pilot.

I'm in the middle of trying to recruit a proper pilot/gunner as I only accept Red Veil members in my crew 😁

I think the only thing pilot skills currently offer is speed, though rank10 command introduces elite skills so I'm interested what they'll have to offer.