Commands get overridden by ship AI

[tornnight]

I minor annoyance.

When a ship decides to 'Escape' due to it's 'AI' setting, there is no way to override it.

If you then force it to do something, it will go back to 'Escape' mode in 2 seconds.

It would be nice if we could override Escape somehow.

[TheLastRonin]

ORIGINAL: tornnight

I minor annoyance.

When a ship decides to 'Escape' due to it's 'AI' setting, there is no way to override it.

If you then force it to do something, it will go back to 'Escape' mode in 2 seconds.

It would be nice if we could override Escape somehow.

When you design the ship remove the FLEE AT 20% SHIELDS? I think this might stop the AI ever trying to flee.

[Litjan]

Hmm, it will check if the condition that causes it to escape are still valid (usually an enemy ship nearby). I agree that a manual override should make the ship stay for a certain amount of time, or maybe until it gets fired upon, or so.

Of course you could change the engagement settings - I think for most unarmed ships they are set to "flee" from all military ships, maybe you could change that to "flee when shields are <75%" or so?

[adecoy95]

personally i like the flee effect, i just wish it wouldn't spend such a long time trying to escape attackers at sub-light speeds before it starts going to warp

[forsaken1111]

ORIGINAL: adecoy95

personally i like the flee effect, i just wish it wouldn't spend such a long time trying to escape attackers at sub-light speeds before it starts going to warp

This is my main concern. When my construction ship decides to 'flee', it doesn't use the optimized quick-jump hyperdrive I have researched and put on it. It putters along at speed 20 and gets shot all to hell, then explodes.

[Aures]

forsaken1111 I agree, ships when fleeing should power up their hyper drives and jump as soon as possible rather than trying to outrange at sublight speeds.

I usually have the opposite problem, when I manually tell a ship to escape (because they are seriously underpowered compared to the ship they are engaging) the ship will often stop trying to escape before it jumps, meaning I have to repeatedly issue escape commands when only one should be required.

[Litjan]

ORIGINAL: Aures

forsaken1111 I agree, ships when fleeing should power up their hyper drives and jump as soon as possible rather than trying to outrange at sublight speeds.

I usually have the opposite problem, when I manually tell a ship to escape (because they are seriously underpowered compared to the ship they are engaging) the ship will often stop trying to escape before it jumps, meaning I have to repeatedly issue escape commands when only one should be required.

I would be interested in a comparison between two cases: Time to initiate hyperspeed under "peaceful" and under "fleeing" condition? Is there one?

[Aures]

Litjan, I have done some ballparking and the answer there is no comparison. By that I mean in peaceful conditions you could jump many, many, many times before a fleeing ship (assuming it is well within weapons range of it attacker) could jump once. I haven't tested it for quite a few builds but I have no reason to think it has changed.

One of my most memorable battles was when I decimated the home system of an enemy empire while one of the abandoned ships I had captured kept the biggest, baddest enemy cap ship occupied by constantly running away from it. I was able to invade several planets before it was able to jump away. I can't see why a ship would want to get out of weapons range before charging up for a jump, jumping away is about the best method of getting out of weapons range ever devised.

[Litjan]

I absolutely agree. If indeed the jump-times for ships under attack are longer, then this is definitely not in line with expectations. Is there a gameplay reason to have it this way? Maybe people would complain about enemies jumping away too quickly, so battles would never be decisive? I guess that´s where the new hyperjump-blocker could come in handy?

[Aures]

Well the hyper deny weapons were in the original DW, the new gravity well projector in ROTS actively pulls ships out of hyper. I think the issue is only when a ship is actively under attack and is fleeing, a group of ships ordered to go to a new location will generally get away in pretty good time even when under fire. But I haven't tested it properly in ROTS, someone (not me unfortunately, I am trying to do way too many things atm) would have to confirm what currently happens to see whether there really is an issue.

[elliotg]

In the upcoming update for ROTS we'll be slightly reducing the distance that ships flee before initiating their hyperjump.

[forsaken1111]

ORIGINAL: elliotg

In the upcoming update for ROTS we'll be slightly reducing the distance that ships flee before initiating their hyperjump.

But why 'flee' at all? Why not flee AND charge the hyperdrive, then activate it as soon as possible?

[Litjan]

I think a sensible behaviour would be:

Initiate a "flee" once the conditions are met (i.e. shields below 20%).

Then check after 5 seconds if the distance to the attacker is increaseng (shows if you can outrun him).

If you can outrun, then keep running, recharge shields and possibly reenter the fray after a minute or two (this would allow to "draw of" ships from the main fight, lessen the burden for the other ships).

If you can not outrun, initiate a hyperjump as fast as possible.

Jan

[forsaken1111]

ORIGINAL: Litjan

I think a sensible behaviour would be:

Initiate a "flee" once the conditions are met (i.e. shields below 20%).

Then check after 5 seconds if the distance to the attacker is increaseng (shows if you can outrun him).

If you can outrun, then keep running, recharge shields and possibly reenter the fray after a minute or two (this would allow to "draw of" ships from the main fight, lessen the burden for the other ships).

If you can not outrun, initiate a hyperjump as fast as possible.

Jan

I'd say that is fine for a military ship, but civilian ships and noncombatants should simply flee into hyperspace ASAP.

I'd also propose that the ship, no matter its type, should attempt to hyperspace away the instant it starts taking armor hits (shields down) as even military ships should run at that point as a stray hit could knock out the hyperdrive.

Even better would be some sort of caution slider or setting per design.