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[Anchorshag]

So aside from Wolf-class frigates being broken and OP my only other problem so far with Starsector is the fact that my fleet's AI is frustratingly unaggressive.

Even when set to full assault, which says in the pop-up makes the fleet more aggressive than normal, AI ships are shy and pretty docile. I have lost battles I would easily have won if my fleet had just moved in and attacked. The enemy AI however is far more aggressive, consistently gangs up on targets and frankly just acts appropriately. Even with "aggressive" officers AI ships are far far too passive.

This behaviour doesnt seem to effect friendly AI who are not part of your fleet, interestingly, which makes me wonder if i'm just not giving orders? But the full assault order does nothing and, frankly, attack and escort orders only seem to be more of a suggestion to your comrades, rather than a full fledged command.

Maybe its just me idk

[Igncom1]

I have the same problem.

It's stopped me playing any-more because it's just frustrating to deal with and makes playing with a fleet a risky and heavily expensive.

[zaimoni]

Eliminate, and Capture objective, orders pretty much prevent that sort of problem, as long as you never, ever hire Cautious or Timid officers.  I haven't worked out whether Steady officers are reasonable with the .8a AI.  It's definite that reckless officers do not die as quickly as advertised.

[BillyRueben]

So aside from Wolf-class frigates being broken and OP...

Oh you are just going to LOVE phase ships. There already exists a thread on taking down Wolves. Personally, I always enjoy the Lasher with Safety Overrides.

Maybe its just me idk

Yes and no. I think I remember reading that the AI is setup to not take risks. It is up to the player to decide when decisive action is needed, so the Engage command usually gets them within weapons range, and the Eliminate is where they will really start to do something. I like to manually select ships, then right click on the baddie that I want them to take out. It works pretty well for me.

[Megas]

AI kites and turtles too much these days.  Always waiting for the perfect opportunity to swarm ships when they can.  Fights are longer than they used to be.  Peak performance is a big deal unless you over-deploy.

And if you take Unstable Injector to get more speed to force fights more easily, you get outranged so badly that your ships are at a severe disadvantage.  Unstable Injector is more useful for cowards who do not need to fire conventional weapons.

[ANGRYABOUTELVES]

This is why I like piloting Herons in 0.8. You can't kite fighters, not even if you're a phase frigate, and the Heron is fast enough to close in on and finish off anything its fighters pin down but can't quite kill themselves.

[Alex]

Hmm - two quick notes:

1) Enemy AI seeming to behave differently is definitely confirmation bias - they're the same, and
2) Use the "Eliminate" command when you really need your allied ships to attack a specific target

In general, AI ships are going to be more careful when outnumbered because they're going to (rightly!) be concerned about being flanked, so deploying more ships is going to help there.

Basically, "Eliminate" is "full assault, focus on this target, and stop caring about being flanked". They may still back off to vent etc but otherwise will press the attack consistently.

[ANGRYABOUTELVES]

It could be a side-effect of the skill rework and other balance changes. It used to be that the player's ships were almost always significantly faster, longer ranged, and generally much stronger than enemy ships due to having good officers, speed boosting hullmods, and +30% bonus OP, so the enemy AI had a very hard time kiting.

[Alex]

Ah, that'd make sense, yeah, at least as a contributing factor as far as the perception goes.

[Recklessimpulse]

Hmm - two quick notes:

1) Enemy AI seeming to behave differently is definitely confirmation bias - they're the same, and
2) Use the "Eliminate" command when you really need your allied ships to attack a specific target

In general, AI ships are going to be more careful when outnumbered because they're going to (rightly!) be concerned about being flanked, so deploying more ships is going to help there.

Basically, "Eliminate" is "full assault, focus on this target, and stop caring about being flanked". They may still back off to vent etc but otherwise will press the attack consistently.

about 1) really? I've noticed it as well I just assumed behind the scenes the AI used a "free" version of engage and eliminate since that would account for the differences I've noted between the AI and our fleet behaviors. I guess it could be confirmation bias though.

[Thaago]

Eliminate, and Capture objective, orders pretty much prevent that sort of problem, as long as you never, ever hire Cautious or Timid officers.  I haven't worked out whether Steady officers are reasonable with the .8a AI.  It's definite that reckless officers do not die as quickly as advertised.

This is the case for me - eliminate orders are very effective, if a double edged sword. I consider Aggressive officers a good choice for normal combat ships, Steady for ships I want to be careful (carriers), and Reckless for brawlers.

I've actually never used "Full Assault"... I probably should for mop up, huh?

[Alex]

about 1) really? I've noticed it as well I just assumed behind the scenes the AI used a "free" version of engage and eliminate since that would account for the differences I've noted between the AI and our fleet behaviors. I guess it could be confirmation bias though.

It only actually uses "eliminate" and "engage" during pursuits, and they're not free.

I've actually never used "Full Assault"... I probably should for mop up, huh?

Yeah, that's pretty much the main use case.

[Linnis]

I don't seem to have this problem... I find my ships happily diving in out numbered.  Just hire aggressive officers, steady officers will sit back at our just a bit beyond max range like they are poking at an alligator or something.

Steady works well for things like sunders or hammerhead type ships with good offense and bad defense. Frigates use cautious or steady so they can keep destroyers or even cruisers busy.

At the moment AI and officer aggressiveness works perfectly for me.

[Zhentar]

Hmm, interesting, I'll have to try escort. I don't use the specific target commands very often because which targets present a good opportunity changes quite frequently.

I do appreciate that the AI isn't doing suicide runs in my ships (although they still seem to like to run off and get slowly whittled down while separated from the rest of the fleet), but it's not much fun to play battles where my allies won't back me up to quickly focus down a target before it can start kiting me and instead just dance around with the other fleet, neither side inflicting any meaningful damage to the other. Most of the time, it's not actually much of a problem but facing 4-5 tempests in a Lion's Guard fleet is awful for me unless I bring in several carriers to swarm them with fighters.

[Megas]

I get the feeling if my flagship does not do something, two similar fleets will dance around each other until everyone is at 0% CR and dead in space for a stalemate (or loss by player forfeiting due to loss of patience).