Move and attack orders randomly cancel in 1.04

from Sins Forums
    I've played 1.04 a bit now and seen movement and attack orders randomly canceled, the result of which is that a ship will go off and do something else. For example, if you tell your siege cap to attack a planet, it will do so for awhile, but then for no apparent reason (and without giving orders to that ship or even any other ship in the same grav well), the siege cap will turn around and attack a nearby enemy frigate. The siege cap wasn't part of a fleet, auto attack was off, and auto join fleet was turned on but there were no fleets in the grav well.

Another example, a set of ships (not in a fleet, no other fleet in the grav well) would be all told to attack an enemy heavy frigate, then some ships (not all) would switch targets to a different enemy frigate before the first was destroyed.

Both my friend and I have seen this behavior repeatedly with our own ships. Games are usually 2 players vs 3 hard AI (aggressor, fortifier, researcher).

Unrelated, seems like with all the botched updates (people complaining about 1.04 crashing etc.) that you guys should leave the previous update online in case people need to revert. You know, a little link at the bottom of Downloads "click here for previous versions" or somesuch.



technical
10,802 views 31 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
One bump so devs see it.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Another example, a set of ships (not in a fleet, no other fleet in the grav well) would be all told to attack an enemy heavy frigate, then some ships (not all) would switch targets to a different enemy frigate before the first was destroyed.
End of quote


The combat AI generally switches to a new target when there's enough incoming fire to finish off a ship, so that your fleet doesn't waste as much firepower. As an example, if a ship has 50hp left and your ships can do 150 points of hull damage, they'll calculate about how many ships will be needed to destroy the 50hp ship, and the rest will switch on a new target. It's fairly good and it adds a bit of extra firepower so that it's not "just barely enough", but sometimes it doesn't always get it right if the target ships are being repaired.

Is this what you're seeing?
SoundPackager - Customize the Windows sound scheme
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
No it is not. It can happen in as little as 30 seconds into a Capship duel. This is new behaviour, it was not present in 1.03. The re-targeting when the current target is near death was there in 1.03 and still works in 1.04.

This appears to be something completely different, and has now forced me to abandon a game after losing two fleets during a three fleet simultaneous fight. Reloading gives me fifteen minutes of precognition and is essentially cheating, so I will not do it. I am playing on hard for a reason.

If someone can tell me which files contain the AI heuristics for battle selection I can figure out what they changed and fix it (I will not search through 896 files - LOL). Otherwise its back to 1.03 for me. It's too hard to babysit three engaged fleets at the same time. (:(

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
That's odd, I haven't noticed it that bad. It does seem like now your ships will go out of their way to chase after scouts, but other than scouts I haven't noticed odd behavior - do you still have a replay of that?

And we're not able to modify that part of the AI.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
I have noticed something like this a couple of times..
I would try and retreat a with fleets turned of and such and all my ships bar 1 or 2 will retreat the others will stay as though i never gave them the order :/

Not a big deal as i am watching the battle so i just re-issue the command and it works.. but can get annoying when it happens a few time sina coupel mins.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
I have notied it most when attacking a planet. My Devestator or other bombing Cap ship will attack the planet once and bug out. Or when I give the retreat command the ship will go to the edge of the gravity well then INEXPLICABLY turn around and re-engage. I didn't have this problem in One oh three.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
have same problem told my armada to retreat they went to edge of gravity well and sat there for a second then re-engage this has happend 11 or 12 times now
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
If you see this happening, save the game and send it to us with a description of where to look ([email protected]). I haven't seen it myself.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
dont really know how to work most of the stuff on my computer sorry but i know is i have lost 2matches since i got the 1.4 patch cause of this
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
Annatar11, to answer your first question about ships changing targets when their current target is nearly destroyed, unfortunately no that's not what I'm seeing.

Kelvaris, I've seen *exactly* what you describe when attacking a planet, with my Devastator as well! (And no, the planet was not almost destroyed.)

If I get a game in this weekend, I'll be sure to save when I see the bug and send the game to [email protected]

As LFFPicard said, this bug isn't that bad if you're watching the battle closely. However, if you're not, it can quickly cause a winning battle to turn against you, and in other situations it can leave you wondering, "Why wasn't that planet destroyed yet?"

I've seen kanesfury's problem too, "... told my armada to retreat they went to edge of gravity well and sat there for a second then re-engage." That one is seriously frustrating, especially when you lose a cap that was told to retreat at half health!

Can anyone that's seen this bug enlighten us on the conditions under which it occurs? We've got anecdotes above but anything that can help the devs reproduce it would be great!
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
i lost my 1000 point fleet because it again last night i told them to attack enemy caps and they just sat there then they retreated i did not tell my armada to retreat they did instead of defending my choke point planet i never told my fleet to fall back im
kinda getting annoyed because i lost 3 matches now cause my fleet didnt listen and i lost all my planets i played the matches for 3 hours to lose because of bug
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
There are autosaves every 10 I think minutes :P While I can imagine it being a bit frustrating, at worst loading back 10 minutes to make the fight go the way it should isn't too bad.

I've yet to see it myself. I have a game going that I started recently bug haven't built up a very big fleet yet. I'll see if I can reproduce it by just jumping in and not giving any orders at all, and seeing how my ships fight.
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
play 9v1 unfair ai locked teams u will see it a lot does it mainly when vasari or tec
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
kanesfury do you have a save game you could send to [email protected] that illustrates the bug? It can be really hard to reproduce things like this from just a description, even when a bunch of us are seeing it during our games.

Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
no never really save my games cause i always start and finish a game without saving sorry
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top
Sure you've got a saved game, plus a saved movie (replay) file. This game saves everything automatically.
Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top
I've been sitting here for the last 2 hours or so trying to get my ships to behave weirdly and it's not working - can anyone give me an actual scenario to try? Next on the list is retreat hanging on the edge of the grav well, was testing in-combat order interruptions so far.
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top
No luck here yet either  :SNIFF!: 
Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top
My main test was jumping my fleet to an enemy planet, and immediately showing the capitals to bombard. Enemy fleet jumped in, and my capitals never stopped bombing unless I ordered them to by using an ability. I then resumed the planet bombard order, and they kept on at it with no cancelling/interruptions :o
Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top
hold position tight fleet stance all group movement and it doesnt do it right away but does it as soon as the giant enemy armada jumps in and starts to fight i notice it i tell them to attack the mothership that has 100 percent health and shields and they instead of attacking retreat
Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top
hold position tight fleet stance all group movement and it doesnt do it right away but does it as soon as the giant enemy armada jumps in and starts to fight i notice it i tell them to attack the mothership that has 100 percent health and shields and they instead of attacking they retreat
Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top
Those of you seeing these issues - what are your system specs, including OS? Wonder if there are some common characteristics, since some folks don't seem to see the issues.
Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top
not sure but i can play supcom fa on highest setting np i know 1 thing though i have a nvidia graphics card
Reply #25 from Sins Forums Top
ive suffered from this problem as well where id send one of my fleets to a planet they would arrive then followed up try to head of to a completly other location then if i see this happen order it yet again to go to its proper location it will imeditly leave ive found this problem occurs more when i dont let ships arrive at there intend rally point once ive constructed them. the worst case of this incident was when i sent my whole fleet to fight of my friends fleet then all my defense vessels try heading of to a distant galaxy >.>