Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Author Topic: The default ship behavior appears to be "reckless".  (Read 1924 times)

Lolpingu

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 63
    • View Profile
The default ship behavior appears to be "reckless".
« on: April 30, 2017, 08:23:32 AM »

I like the new feature that alters the attitude of the ship based on the officer flying that ship.
Unfortunately, there's a limit to how many officers you can have, thus meaning that, in large battles (or early on when you have not acquired a large number of officers yet), you'll have to field many ships without officers flying them.
The problem here is that the default behavior of a ship without an officer appears to be "reckless", as they have an annoying tendency to break formation and charge head-first into large groups of ships with complete disregard for their own survival (even if they have no weapons equipped!). This is especially annoying with carriers like the Drover, which are supposed to be timid by default due to their poor defensive and offensive capabilities when using anything other than talons in their flight decks.
I think combat would be more enjoyable if the default ship behavior was made more cautious so that ship losses wouldn't be so illogical and unavoidable all the time.
Logged

Schwartz

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1452
    • View Profile
Re: The default ship behavior appears to be "reckless".
« Reply #1 on: April 30, 2017, 08:55:10 AM »

I think 'steady' is supposed to be the default stance for AI ships, and either 'cautious' or 'timid' for civilian craft or those with no weapons in their loadout. If one of yours is consistently charging to its death, it might be worth a bug report. I could see this happening if you gave a Drover short-ranged non-PD guns and it tried to fight with them.
Logged

Alex

  • Administrator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 23988
    • View Profile
Re: The default ship behavior appears to be "reckless".
« Reply #2 on: April 30, 2017, 08:55:42 AM »

There's a bug specifically related to carriers, when they're carrying out an assignment. Usually they'll auto-escort a nearby friendly and hide behind them, but when given an assignment, they don't do that, which can lead to this sort of behavior.

Edit: I could more see it happening if it had some short-range PD guns. Can you confirm that the Drover did this even with no actual guns equipped? Would be something else for me to take a look at.
Logged

Lolpingu

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 63
    • View Profile
Re: The default ship behavior appears to be "reckless".
« Reply #3 on: April 30, 2017, 09:18:27 AM »

There's a bug specifically related to carriers, when they're carrying out an assignment. Usually they'll auto-escort a nearby friendly and hide behind them, but when given an assignment, they don't do that, which can lead to this sort of behavior.

Edit: I could more see it happening if it had some short-range PD guns. Can you confirm that the Drover did this even with no actual guns equipped? Would be something else for me to take a look at.


Weapons-wise, I only put harpoon racks on my Drovers (in addition to two Spark wings and expanded crew decks) though earlier on before I got the skill that gives you +10% to ordnance points, I only equipped them with fighter wings, defensive hullmods and no weapons at all, and they were still behaving the same way they're behaving now.

Edit: I should also mention that my Herons display the same behavior, even though I only fit them with long-range weapons (mauler, needler, graviton beam, etc).
« Last Edit: April 30, 2017, 09:30:31 AM by Lolpingu »
Logged

Alex

  • Administrator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 23988
    • View Profile
Re: The default ship behavior appears to be "reckless".
« Reply #4 on: April 30, 2017, 11:42:03 AM »

Thank you for the additional info. About to dive into this one, actually, so perfect timing :)
Logged