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[Alex]

I wonder, could making the AI braver if it's armour is in good condition (in comparison to it's target, using absolute values to avoid a ship with untouched 200 trying to face-tank something with 500 half gone) work?

Probably not as is - it's rarely a 1 vs 1 in the first place, and beyond that, high armor only helps in some situations, not all. For example, pressing the attack at high flux and high armor may get you taken down by missiles, EMP weaponry, or anything with high enough anti-armor damage. This is the sort of thing that makes AI work tricky - there are lots of edge cases, so very rarely can you say with certainty that "if X, doing Y is a good idea". It's almost always a combination of many factors, and yet another reason for the AI to play it safe.

(The AI does indeed consider the state of its armor, along with many other factors.)

[Alex]

Alright, decided to experiment a bit here.

Search & Destroy makes ships a lot more aggressive - basically, they stop backing off due to positional information, i.e. if they're being possibly flanked etc.

Added a "reckless" officer personality, which is slightly more aggressive than aggressive plus always acts as if search & destroy is on.

Also changed "Intercept" to "Eliminate"; can now be given on any size enemy ship and ships assigned to this will act as if search & destroy is on.

Still playing around with this, so not 100% sure if it'll stick, but looks promising right now.

[Megas]

Is there a new command to remove all orders (or an easy way to select all and click once for all) without enabling new reckless behavior?  I have used Search & Destroy as a shortcut to clear all orders in one click instead of clicking every ship to cancel orders.

[Alex]

There isn't, no. If there are a bunch of orders I suppose you could S&D, make a new assignment (to cancel the S&D mode, which is indicated by the color of that button), and then cancel that. Naturally, that's a bit awkward.

My thought here is that you're rarely going to want S&D without the new behavior, right? They're not all "reckless" from S&D, btw, as "reckless" also involves a lot of not caring about flux levels and other such. A "cautious" + S&D will still be more cautious, it's just going to work with the assumption that it can ignore anything that looks like a positional threat due to having overall battlefield superiority.

And then if you do, you can still cancel the assignments manually or do the S&D/new assignment/cancel. Hmm. Could also make using S&D again toggle that status - let me make a note.

[Gothars]

This sounds great! An "eliminate" order is something players wanted for a long time. And reckless captains will be great for pursuit ships.

I wonder, does the enemy AI sometimes use S&D in escape scenarios? That could make it a lot harder to escape without heavy losses.

[TaLaR]

And reckless captains will be great for pursuit ships.

Actually, this is where I have problem with whole personality idea. You have just 10 Captains -> you can't afford specialized ones for pursuit, they need to perform well in any situation you throw at them.
Or at least scenarios that really matter, like surviving as long as possible against overwhelming enemy fleet.
Which means only Steady or preferably Cautious officers are fit for my fleet.

[Megas]

@ Alex: Admittedly, I often use it at the end, but there were some times I used it in the middle of battle when the winner was still in doubt just to remove (sometimes obsolete) orders from some ships among a crowd, or to remove some Assault/Defend or Engage order from a bunch of ships when that is no longer becomes necessary.

@ TaLaR: I have about four frigates dedicated to pursuit.  Those are usually the times when I do not solo fights with one ship.  That said, dividing my already minuscule fleet into various roles encourages me to solo nearly every fight.  Five or six ships to kill 40+ ships (AI cannot fight such bad odds, but the player can), four or five frigates for pursuit, three Atlas to haul, three tugs to make my Atlas faster, and the rest (up to about ten or so) as spoils from shopping or boarding.

But, yes, officers are generally more useful when you can use them in any situation.  (That is one reason I do not want to train ten Timid officers for a dedicated Pilum spam fleet of Vigilances.)  That is less of a concern if the player plans to solo every fight that matters and use officers mostly to keep CR maxed at 100% instead of 80%.

As for my choice of officer personality:  My favorite tends to be Steady.  I have about two Aggressive, one or two Cautious, one or two Timid, and the rest Steady.

[TaLaR]

@Megas: Well, If primary use of officers in your fleet is as CR benchwarmers, then you can afford more specialization (or simply not to care much about personalities). While I do understand benefits of soloing, I don't really do it that often.

[Gothars]

And reckless captains will be great for pursuit ships.

Actually, this is where I have problem with whole personality idea. You have just 10 Captains -> you can't afford specialized ones for pursuit, they need to perform well in any situation you throw at them.
Or at least scenarios that really matter, like surviving as long as possible against overwhelming enemy fleet.
Which means only Steady or preferably Cautious officers are fit for my fleet.

Mhh. I almost never use all my officers in one battle - there's just no enemy that would warrant it (aside from mods like Templar). And according to your logic, ships should not be specialized either, which is, in my experience, both less effective and less fun. Generally, I found that exceeding in some situations is worth more than being adequate in all, especially since you're often the one choosing a combat situation.

[Cycerin]

I love these changes! Also because this makes playing against the AI more exciting.

[Megas]

If fleet action was rewarding enough, then I would use more all-purpose officers that I can always deploy.  It was more fun deploying all when deploying fleets was rewarding enough.

But, currently, soloing is the most rewarding (or rather, the least punishing) playstyle by far.  At that point, officers are most useful as "CR benchwarmers".

[Alex]

I wonder, does the enemy AI sometimes use S&D in escape scenarios? That could make it a lot harder to escape without heavy losses.

It does, yeah. I've actually got a todo item to take a look at this again to make sure how it uses it still makes sense.

And reckless captains will be great for pursuit ships.

Actually, this is where I have problem with whole personality idea. You have just 10 Captains -> you can't afford specialized ones for pursuit, they need to perform well in any situation you throw at them.
Or at least scenarios that really matter, like surviving as long as possible against overwhelming enemy fleet.
Which means only Steady or preferably Cautious officers are fit for my fleet.

If anything, this changes goes in the other direction - with Eliminate and Search & Destroy, almost all officer personalities (except timid) will perform better in pursuit type situations. Getting a reckless officer *just* for that might be a waste, as they wouldn't do much better than an aggressive one with S&D on. I'd expect reckless officers to be a better fit for something like an SO Lasher, or perhaps a heavily armored battleship that you want to keep going forward and taking a beating.

I love these changes! Also because this makes playing against the AI more exciting.

Oh, as a side note to that, some REDACTED exploration-related content uses this as well.

[HELMUT]

I'd expect reckless officers to be a better fit for something like an SO Lasher, or perhaps a heavily armored battleship that you want to keep going forward and taking a beating.

I won't lie, i immediately thought about SO when i saw about reckless AI. Finally some proper Pather fleet!

Oh, as a side note to that, some REDACTED exploration-related content uses this as well.

Ferociously territorial defense drones? This could be fun.

[Alex]

I won't lie, i immediately thought about SO when i saw about reckless AI. Finally some proper Pather fleet!

Yep, pather officers tend to be a bit mentally unstable

[Gothars]

How does it feel fighting a reckless officer? Is it easy to bait and kill them in single combat, or only in a fleet context? Ha, it would be crazy if you could somehow provoke enemies and turn them reckless. Like a taunt skill or something.


BTW, is "search&destroy" still the best name for what it does? Seems like something like "Rout the Enemy" would be more self-explanatory, no?  Or just "Full assault" or "all-out attack". Or whatever the proper military term for "mopping up" is.