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[CptZoom]

So I'm losing battles because the enemy isn't attacking me and I can't catch up with them. The fight drags on and my CR depletes and everything breaks down and the battle is lost. I don't know what I'm doing wrong? Do I just need to take small fast ships for combat? Is there a Mod that makes the enemy AI more aggressive? This is what happens in Total War: Warhammer III as well, the AI wont attack unless it knows it can win. Smart AI, but miserable player experience. Are these games supposed to be fun or realistic?

[Kwbr]

more information on your fleet and the enemy you're fighting would help, along with any mods you might be running. is this happening with every fight?

[CptZoom]

I was using a Conquest Cruiser, A pirate mule, a small carrier, a frigates, a tanker, and a buffalo. The enemy had one destroyer, five or six frigates, and some shuttles. Essentially it just kept stalling and pulling back from my cruiser. I couldn't close on it and my CR went down, my systems stopped working and they took out my ships one by one. I tried the battle numerous times, the issue was always that I couldn't close and they would wait me out. I deleted the save in anger and uninstalled. Thanks for the response though.

[BigBrainEnergy]

That's really weird. If the enemy is flying destroyers and frigates their CR should run out before the conquest does. Even then, the AI typically does get close enough for you to shoot at them considering the massive range advantage a conquest has (you did get an ITU or targeting core, right?)

[prav]

A Brawler or Vanguard with Wolfpack Tactics, Combat Endurance and Hardened Subsystems will straight up outlast a stock Conquest by a minute of PPT, or almost four minutes if you count degradation time above 30% CR. I don't think any of their base variants use HSS though. But if you have several ships and some of them drift out of contact occasionally (to capture a point, for instance) this can probably make up the difference.

And a common Lasher with WPT and CE still gets 420 seconds PPT, 70% of a stock Conquest. Frigates can have pretty good staying power these days.

If you're having trouble with frigates some fast fighters usually do a good job hunting them down - Broadswords, Thunders, Talons or similar.

[BigBrainEnergy]

Spoiler

A Brawler or Vanguard with Wolfpack Tactics, Combat Endurance and Hardened Subsystems will straight up outlast a stock Conquest by a minute of PPT, or almost four minutes if you count degradation time above 30% CR. I don't think any of their base variants use HSS though. But if you have several ships and some of them drift out of contact occasionally (to capture a point, for instance) this can probably make up the difference.

And a common Lasher with WPT and CE still gets 420 seconds PPT, 70% of a stock Conquest. Frigates can have pretty good staying power these days.

[close]

Yeah, if you minmax them for ppt which the AI doesn't, and even then the conquest still has around 3 minutes of extra ppt. Does the AI even get wolfpack tactics?

[Megas]

This sounds like a contact bounty against a merc(?) fleet with nothing but frigates with s-mods.  They are deceptively strong.

[cerberusti]

This game both benefits and suffers from a very long development period.  The AI especially has had a lot of work invested into it, and the behaviors have many rules. 

Some piloting styles cause the AI to never engage, and how I am naturally inclined to pilot most ships causes this as well (especially small ships).  If I just go try to design and fly a ship without accounting for how to deal with runners, nearly all of my battles end as yours do, with zero CR ships trying to kill each other during engine out periods if they have functional weapons (even if I chase them the entire time).

I reported it as a bug a while ago once some of the methods of soloing fleets were removed, thinking it may be an unintentional issue, but I do not think it is, the AI just prioritizes survival.

The key is that the AI will rarely suicide into you, so if you pilot in a way where it never has an opening, and if it closed it would die, it will just back off until it runs out of CR or you do.  If they have multiple small ships, that can actually be a winning tactic for the AI, even if very frustrating for the player as they kite you to the time limit and a loss or a stalemate.

The last few games this has not been much of a problem for me, as I never have a fleet without a counter to this issue.  The options I have found, in order of effectiveness and ease, are:

1) Be faster.  Early game safety overrides and unstable injector are a very good idea, later you still want a couple of small ships built for speed which you can call in to chase something.  A hound or hyperion are good choices for this.  You simply catch it and kill it or make it stay and fight while you catch it with something larger.

2) Have fighters.  A single condor can make you immune to this in the early game, a larger carrier works for later.  Most fighters are pretty fast, and nothing can effectively run long term with fighters on it.

3) Greatly outrange the enemy.  You may need to disable weapons and target something else, but eventually the AI will nerve up and engage.  If it comes well within your range, and you are a larger ship, once you switch to it and open up it will not be able to get far enough away to live.  This is mostly a large ship tactic.

4) Massive burst.  Same idea as above, but with shorter range and enough dps to wreck small craft very quickly.  Just sit, wait, open up, and instantly wreck smaller craft before they can even move away.  Be sure to only fire upon a ship if you think you can get a near immediate kill with burst damage.

5) Remain at very high flux.  If you can load out a Paragon such that you can survive long periods at 80-90% flux (especially hard flux), the AI becomes very aggressive as it tries to push that advantage.  This is a late game tactic where you wreck everything as it closes, and everything tries to close fast (so it is very time efficient).  Set the bait, and try to push enough damage to rubble everything before it can hurt you.  Many frigates or destroyers at full flux will happily close with you and resolve the fight one way or another if you are at high flux in a large ship.

[cerberusti]

This sounds like a contact bounty against a merc(?) fleet with nothing but frigates with s-mods.  They are deceptively strong.

Strong contract bounties with small ships tend not to do this.  They tend to have the advantage and a fair number of total deployment points, and press it well.  Individual ships will cycle in and out, but the pressure will stay on your ships, so you will not get to a CR out position in a conquest.  It will be resolved before this in most cases, and the remaining ships will flee the field once you kill enough.

This happens when the fight cannot really get started.  In my experience this happens if you fly a ship which has long range weapons, and is fast but not fast enough.  If they are faster and shorter range, and you approach in a way where they cannot cleanly engage you (meaning you are strafing and not entering their forward cone of fire), they can run until everyone is out of CR, without any weapons being fired (or only missiles).

The general behavior is effective at preventing a player from soloing a fleet (it prevents you from quickly picking off enemies one at a time without much risk), but has the side effect that if you try this, the battle ends with everyone out of CR.