AI & Disabled ships

Yaga

Is anyone aware of the various parameters the dictate whether an AI will destroy a disabled ship vs. board it? I'm trying to figure out how to make a Mercenary pers/dude/flet/govt set that will go for the disable, and not the kill on the various Enemy Gov's ships to justify their fleets of various ships. However, it doesn't seem to be working.

Pirates and Fr Trade for example, seem to only board/capture Traders, and destroy Assoc, Rebel, Fed and any other dudes they come across; hence, Pirates and Fr Trade will never be observed capturing an Anaconda or Gunboat, and so they don't get those ship in their flets, but a rogue Pirate Starliner or Pegasus isn't inconceivable since those are Trader ships and they'll occasionally disable and board them.

What I'm hoping for is a behavior of my new Mercenary pers/dude/flet/govt (can you tell I'm new at this plug-in thing?) that will allow the player to observe their disabling, say, a Fed Gunboat or WldGse Mod Starbridge, boarding it, and making it their escort to justify their having those ships in their flet.

Please feel free to berate me if I've not read the Nova Bible closely enough; otherwise, any help you could give would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Yaga

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For some the fairest thing on this dark earth is
Thermopylae and Spartan Phalanxes low'ring lances to die
- Sappho

mrxak

I'll venture a guess at the behavior, but I can't say for certain if it's true.
If those governments are enemies of the pirates (or vice versa) they destroy them. If not, the xenophobia comes into effect, and they exhibit pirate behavior of boarding ships. This is only a guess. You'll have to try it out for yourself, or have someone with more specific knowledge or experience confirm or deny my theory.

Kame

Quote

Originally posted by mrxak:
I'll venture a guess at the behavior, but I can't say for certain if it's true.
If those governments are enemies of the pirates (or vice versa) they destroy them. If not, the xenophobia comes into effect, and they exhibit pirate behavior of boarding ships. This is only a guess. You'll have to try it out for yourself, or have someone with more specific knowledge or experience confirm or deny my theory.

I haven't noticed my xenophobic govts behave this way - course that could be due to their ally and enemy settings. But they pretty much attack and destroy everyone - never stopping at only disabling.

(edit) Wait, isn't there a "Plunder" flag in the govt resource - or am I just making that up?

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I used to jog but the ice kept falling out of my glass.
(url="http://"http://www.0three0.net/l-1551/")L-1551(/url) - The official site of RONIN and The Way and the ten thousand things

(This message has been edited by Kame (edited 04-28-2003).)

Yaga

Aha!

Quote

The different bits that can be set in a govt's Flags field are:
...
0x1000 Warships will plunder non-mission, non-player enemies before
destroying them

"Plunder" - that was the word I needed. Thanks, Kame.

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For some the fairest thing on this dark earth is
Thermopylae and Spartan Phalanxes low'ring lances to die
- Sappho

mburch

I don't have the code in front of me at the moment, but I believe AI ships will only plunder freighter-type ships - i.e. InherentAI types 1 or 2 - and will destroy warships.

mcb

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"If it's not on fire, it's a software problem."

mrxak

That also makes more sense than what I said...

spacecowboy

Quote

Originally posted by mburch:
**I don't have the code in front of me at the moment, but I believe AI ships will only plunder freighter-type ships - i.e. InherentAI types 1 or 2 - and will destroy warships.

mcb

**

That sucks! I mean, if the crew of a Pirate Starbridge manages to disable a Fed Destroyer, wouldn't they want to at least TRY to capture it? I mean, hey, at least it's worth a pretty penny, and, if outfitted correctly, could be a major upgrade from their current ship. This would also allow us to see Pirate versions of Destroyers, Cruisers, PBs, Abominations, Firebirds, Phoenices, Fed Carriers, Aurora Carriers, and even Strikers and Zephyrs (although the last two would be MUCH more rare). The player is a human. If the player disables a ship superior to his/her own, he/she will board it and attempt to capture it (or at least steal some ammo/money/fuel/whatever). The AI should act as much like a human as possible. Therefore, since humans tend to disable and board all enemy craft, and the AI should act like humans, the AI should tend to disable and board all enemy craft.

Rant over.

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Suddenly, the little scoutship disappeared and then reappeared right behind the alien warfleet. The gravitic ship's captain hailed the armada. "You are going to be destroyed, but I will give you a choice as to how you want to spend eternity: big pieces, little pieces, or quarks?"
Dead silence.
"Quarks it is, then."

mrxak

It's just a game.

Vaumnou

You should really shut up and play!

...with Escape Velocity Theatre
...1.0!

-Vaumnou

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Did you know that 63.8% of quoted statistics are made up on the spot?
"He's too late. SEE?!? THE CLIFFS OF INSANITY!!! Hurry up!"

(This message has been edited by Vaumnou (edited 05-01-2003).)