Not sure if this is something new to 0.95a or not, but I've noticed a variety of AI stupidity. Currently using RC12. My fleet consists of me using an SO Aurora, with 4 SO Medusas and 4 Drovers. Yes I know SO is no longer possible via SP, but I don't think it matters here.
The Medusas have 2 dual autocannons, and either 1) 2 IR pulse lasers, a cryoblaster, and an ion pulser, or 2) an IR pulse laser, an ion cannon, a cryoflamer, and a heavy blaster.
The Drovers have spark/broadsword, 4 salamanders, and 2 light machine guns.
All officers are aggressive.
1. Medusas sent to capture an objective will retreat away from enemy frigates. I'm talking about 2 Medusas sent to the same objective deciding to run away from a lone Glimmer, letting the Glimmer capture the objective.
2. Medusas will overload a frigate and then back off instead of finishing it off. No other ships/fighters in the vicinity, and Medusas at low flux.
3. The Medusas seem to be much more timid than the Drovers, despite all having aggressive officers. Even when the whole fleet is ordered to attack a target, the Medusas will often hang back behind Drovers.
4. The Drovers meanwhile seem to have no problems drifting into multiple Brilliants, etc. Supposedly when armed with just missiles and point defense (LMG) they should be staying away (especially with the pilum bug -- I'm still using RC12), but no, they'll just saunter up to big ships. I've even seen a Medusa at low flux fleeing from a Fulgent, with a Drover drifting in behind the Fulgent, almost chasing it (except facing the wrong way). The Fulgent then gives up chasing the Medusa and then blows up the Drover.
I'm not sure what might be helpful for diagnosing these AI problems. Unfortunately Starsector doesn't have a playback feature, and since I'm concentrating on my flagship, usually by the time I notice the AI being stupid (which happens unpredictably -- it'll be okay for a while, then suddenly make stupid decisions) the screen wasn't on them beforehand so it's hard to tell what got them in that situation in the first place. I also don't know of a way to see what the AI is "thinking" at any given time. (I used to use the AI Flag Tool mod by Blothorn in 0.9.1a but haven't tried it for 0.95a.)
Generally speaking the AI seems to do fine in "small" situations. When I first started playing, the fact that frigates would juke around your projectiles, run behind your other ships to block you from hitting them, was fantastic. However it seems to make a lot of "strategic" errors once there are more ships, basically drifting away from the rest of the fleet unless you use a "Defend" command to leash it, getting itself cornered through bad positioning, not understanding that the Radiant is very dangerous and not drift toward it (Medusas will teleport away when flux is high, but Drovers just simply drift into range -- should it not realize that it's in the firing range of a capital ship?), etc. That leads to me spending a lot of time trying to save them instead of them taking care of themselves.
Edit: Attached are some screenshots of this happening. I have the Ship Direction Marker mod installed, which allows you to see what direction the ships were heading toward.
Screenshot037-min: The battle commands. Basically, at beginning of combat, I set them all to capture the lower left objective, and also set the defend waypoint. This way, after they capture the objective, they'll automatically defend the area and stay leashed (most of the time, anyway). At this point, the Radiant has made its way to the lower left, and I'm coming in from the right, with the main fleet vs fleet engagement already underway.
Screenshot036-min: This Drover is around 1000 su away from the Radiant, at full flux, yet heading full-speed toward the Radiant (you can see via the Ship Direction Marker icon where it's headed). Its engines were functioning, so this was an AI choice (and not the result of flameout); it changed course and started going straight for the Radiant right before the screenshot.
Screenshot038-min: Meanwhile, the Medusas are around 2500 su away from the Radiant, but actively backing off, despite being SO ships at 0 flux.
Screenshot040-min: This Medusa is also backing away with nearly 0 flux, despite having an easy target right in front of it that was just damaged. Is it that scared of the Glimmer's ion beam or something?
These kinds of AI mistakes make fleet combat very frustrating, especially when this game opts for a "player commands are more of suggestions than actual commands" approach to player control, plus the player is limited in how many commands can be given. In a typical RTS for example, the player can give commands to units at will and the units will follow the player's commands exactly, for better or for worse, so the units act as the player intends. This game's approach means that the units are more or less trying to "intuit" the player's intent, or more accurately, the player is trying to "intuit" what the AI might do since the AI won't directly obey the player. This may be good when the AI is reasonably well-behaved and predictable, but just leads to frustration when it's not.
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