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[TaLaR]

Which they obviously shouldn't.

Examples:
1) Enemy Onslaught vs Drover + a frigate. A frigate is too small to follow, so Drover just keeps distance as I'd want it to. Both are fast enough to never be caught, so the only threat is death by PPT/CR.
2) Enemy Onslaught vs Drover + a fast DE. DE avoids Burn Driving Onslaught, Drover lags behind and tries to follow even through the death zone right in front of Onslaught, eventually dying in few passes.

[Thaago]

Is this with an escort order on the combat ship?

[Alex]

Is this with an escort order on the combat ship?

Carriers auto-escort nearby combat ships so they "hide" behind them and are generally in a better position to support them, since if they're far away, it takes longer for each attack run.


Hmm - in the dev version, I've already changed it so they won't try to escort ships one size smaller, since, yeah, that can lead to problems. As you noted, though, a frigate will often get enough separation so it's not very noticeable in the first place. A faster ship of the same size is more questionable; I think it can be beneficial and I'm not sure the cases where it causes problems are that much of an issue in an actual fleet fight - the faster DE will separate, and the carrier should find another nearby ship to hide behind, or just back off... or the faster DE will become part of a battle line, where its speed doesn't factor in for this, and the carrier being nearby-ish is helpful. So the window for when this could be bad seems fairly narrow (and, granted, probably most visible in a simulator setup). It's not very clear where to draw the line.

Some ships (Mora, Legion) will also no longer do the auto-escort behavior - not 100% sure if that's already the case of if it's just an in-dev thing.

[pairedeciseaux]

Indeed the current behaviour works really well with grouped ships providing enough safety to each other. So it's hard to fault as long as the group stays cohesive.

The test case given by TaLaR shows one limit: AI carrier prioritize following the other ship, while the first human decision probably would have been "put yourself to safety ASAP". So what is missing IMO here is a two-fold tactical situation assessment:

- a strong threat is too close, backing off should be prioritized over auto-escort or anything else (mainly defensive decision)

- a strong threat is close and in the way of an allied combat ship, encirclement manoeuvring should be prioritized over auto-escort of the allied combat ship (mixed offensive+defensive decision)

[Wyvern]

Some ships (Mora, Legion) will also no longer do the auto-escort behavior - not 100% sure if that's already the case of if it's just an in-dev thing.

That's an in-dev thing.  On live, ships flagged as combat carriers will still hide behind allied vessels whenever they can.  (This causes me to go and edit a bunch of ships to remove the carrier flags; good to hear it's fixed in dev.)

[intrinsic_parity]

Yeah, all my attempts to utilize an AI brawling legion have resulted in it hiding in the back and wasting all the weapons I put on it. Very glad to hear that will no longer be the case. Maybe I will remove the career tag in the mean time to see how the ship works.

[TaLaR]

The test case given by TaLaR shows one limit: AI carrier prioritize following the other ship, while the first human decision probably would have been "put yourself to safety ASAP".

Yeah, it's matter of priorities. Staying close to allies is nice and all, but not at cost of trying to facetank an Onslaught.
Disengaging to the best of it's ability may (or may not) eventually put the carrier in position vulnerable to other threats, but that still trumps getting killed in next few seconds.

It's just annoying and somewhat 4th-wall-breaking that a single Drover would survive without a problem, but addition of an ally kills it.

[Morrokain]

Some ships (Mora, Legion) will also no longer do the auto-escort behavior - not 100% sure if that's already the case of if it's just an in-dev thing.

That's an in-dev thing.  On live, ships flagged as combat carriers will still hide behind allied vessels whenever they can.  (This causes me to go and edit a bunch of ships to remove the carrier flags; good to hear it's fixed in dev.)

Do the ones you are talking about have:

CARRIER, COMBAT, NO_AUTO_ESCORT

- as their AI hints? If so, that means NO_AUTO_ESCORT is bugged in the current release.

[Wyvern]

Do the ones you are talking about have:

CARRIER, COMBAT, NO_AUTO_ESCORT

- as their AI hints? If so, that means NO_AUTO_ESCORT is bugged in the current release.

Hm, I'll have to test that now that you point it out - the one I know has problems is, indeed, a modded ship that's missing the NO_AUTO_ESCORT flag.