AI Agressiveness

[Doober]

Does anyone have any idea on what causes AI ships to flee rather than attack during battle? I end up chasing alot of ships down and they won't engage me in battle, even if they are stronger ships.

 

[Admiral TeaRex]

this answer seems to be a bit late, but i think it's all based on the odds. i mean, each ship [IIRC] compares itself to you. how many crew, how many guns, speed, manouverability...etc. they don't count the fact that they may have other ships with them, in a fleet, and simply scatter.....

 

[LarryHookins]

I was just in that code recently. Actually, they do consider if they have friendly ships around. Morale seems to play a big part in whether they decide to flee or not.

Hook

 

[Admiral TeaRex]

ahh....it seems i am behind the times as well as lost.....another bad mark to my name! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/jackhat.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":j2" border="0" alt="jackhat.gif" /> lol...
must be the fact i haven't played in a while...

 

[LarryHookins]

I just went through the code. It doesn't seem to care about friendly ships around except under one special circumstance having to do with being around 5% HP, if I undertsand the code correctly. But at that level they're already sinking, really.

A ship will attempt to run away once the morale gets to a low level. Merchants are twice as likely to run as warships, and pirates are less likely to run than warships by 25%.

There used to be a line of code that would keep a ship from surrendering if any friendly ship was closer than any enemy ships. But it's been commented out for some reason.

Hope this helps.

Hook

 

[Admiral TeaRex]

so...im not as lost as i think? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/jackhat.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":j2" border="0" alt="jackhat.gif" />

 

[Pieter Boelen]

<!--quoteo(post=163468:date=Sep 24 2006, 09:17 PM:name=Hook)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Hook @ Sep 24 2006, 09:17 PM) [snapback]163468[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
There used to be a line of code that would keep a ship from surrendering if any friendly ship was closer than any enemy ships. But it's been commented out for some reason.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Could we re-enable that line? What would happen if we did that?

 

[LarryHookins]

I'd like to reenable it, actually. The main effect would be to have fewer surrenders. But I have the global surrender scale at 0.05 in my system now, and it's working nicely. As far as I know, it wouldn't break anything else.

Hook

 

[Jack Davidson]

I'd be interested to see this re-enabled, and see how it effects surrenders. Hopefully a good balance will be achieved. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/keith.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="keith.gif" /> <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/poet.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":hmm" border="0" alt="poet.gif" />

 

[LarryHookins]

Here's the line line in AIShip.c, somewhere around line number 700 to 800:

//if(HPr > 20 && fdist <= enemydistance) return; // if friend closer than enemy, no surrender.

Just take out the "//" at the beginning of the line to uncomment it. It doesn't seem like it would hurt anything.

Hook

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I'll have that line re-enabled in the next modpack version. See if it works. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

 

[Rad]

Maybe I would try it too for curiosity. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/mybad.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="mybad.gif" />

 

[Doober]

Thanks for checking that out, Hook.

You mentioned that a ship will attempt to run away once the morale gets to a low level. Merchants are twice as likely to run as warships, and pirates are less likely to run than warships by 25%.

(Sorry, I haven't figured out how to quote yet)

Do you know where in the code this is? Just for myself, I would rather engage in cannon dueling as opposed to chasing down fleeing ships.

 

[LarryHookins]

You might get a good effect by changing the values of the following variables in InternalSettings.h:

SURR_MAX_MORALE (default 40, ship will not surrender if morale is above this)
SURR_MRL_SCL_MAX (defalut 1.0)
SURR_MRL_SCL_MIN (default 0.2)

SURR_MAX_MORALE is used to determine if a ship will run away as well. If you set it lower you'll have fewer surrenders and fewer ships fleeing. Perhaps 20 or 15 would work, experiment.

Hook