AI

Artificial Intelligence can be used to make vehicles and structures fully autonomous. Consider: After making the tour of the nearby island, and sinking your first few ships, you may want to add a second one. But who is going to pilot that?
 * AI Mainframe - essential core component

Or consider: you made a huge battleship. With cannons. And missiles. And torpedoes. And stuff. But in testing you realise that controlling those different weapons together gets confusing, fast.

The answer is automation, or Artificial Intelligence.

There are two systems in the game:
 * The full fledged AI system, found in the 'AI' tab.
 * The Control Block, great for automating a simple task, like raising shields when an enemy is around. Found in the 'Control' tab.

Full AI
The AI in From the Depths can do about everything you can with the ship: moving and shooting.

Basics
The absolute minimum you need is an AI mainframe block. This is the core of anything smart. If you manage to destroy the AI core of an enemy ship, you can board and claim the ship. Or you can even board en hunt for the core. A core on its own doesn't do much, it needs processing cards and links to the weapons. You can place the core anywhere you like.

Adding cards is done by using the card blocks and placing cards next to them.

Parts

 * AI Mainframe
 * AI Card Slot
 * (CARD) Naval AI
 * (CARD) sailing
 * (CARD) Aerial AI
 * (CARD) water start
 * (CARD) target prioritisation
 * (CARD) Aim point selection
 * (CARD) Fortress AI
 * (CARD) Propulsion Balancing
 * (CARD) Land AI
 * Connector
 * General Purpose Processing Card
 * Wireless Transmitter
 * Wireless Receiver
 * Local Weapon Controller
 * Anti Missile Cannon Controller
 * Failsafe
 * Enemy Simulator
 * Flag post
 * PID
 * Intra Vehicle Transmitter
 * Munition Warner
 * Laser Warner
 * Smoke dispenser

Detection types
Detection probability is 10% at maximum range, and increases inversely proportionally to range below that. Range is effectively multiplied by the detection factor.


 * Passive: Automatically detects any active systems of the specified type within their maximum range.
 * Retroreflection: Detects visual detectors with probability $$e^{-0.002 r}$$ where $$r$$ is the range in metres.
 * Wireless Snooper: Maximum range is 50 times the total distance traversed by wireless signals on the target construct.
 * IR: Maximum range is 500 m per body temperature plus the temperature of exposed hot objects and events (such as firing a cannon or missile).
 * Sonar: Maximum range is 500 m per underwater detection cross section facing towards the detector.
 * Radar: Maximum range is 250 m per above-water detection cross section facing towards the detector.
 * Laser: Only requires line of sight.
 * Visual: Maximum range is 111 m per above-water surface area facing towards the detector.

Field of view

 * "360" field of view detectors can detect targets at each face except the bottom, provided that they have a clear line of sight directly out of the vehicle from that face.
 * "90" field of view detectors can detect targets at their front face, provided that they have a clear line of sight directly out of the vehicle from that face.
 * Trackers can detect targets that have already been detected by another detector with at least 10 degree accuracy. They require line to sight to that target.

Visual and laser detectors can see through glass.

Cross-section
Cross section is based on the outermost blocks of the six cardinal directions, weighted by the detector direction. Alloy has the lowest cross section per area of 0.02. Other structural blocks have a cross section of 0.03 per square metre. However, other blocks may have cross sections of up to 2 per square metre.