Enemy AI is worse - runs from battle

[Id10tsyndrome]

So today, I ran through 3 custom battles. Each time, I was outmatched in # of ships and in gun caliber yet the enemy chooses to run instead of actually engage. For all three battles, I had to chase the enemy ships. Why is the enemy running from a fight now?

Battle 1:

Me - BB with 4 x 2/18in, 8 x 2/8in

Enemy - 2 BB's with 4 x 2/20in, various secondaries

Battle 2:

Me - BC with 4 x 2/15, 4 x 2/6in

Enemy - BB with 4 x 3/17in, various secondaries, BC with 5 x 2/14in, various secondaries

Battle 3:

Me - CA with 4 x 2/8in, 3 x 2/5in

Enemy - 2 CA's with 4 x 3/10in, various secondaries + torps
 

[Norbert Sattler]

What I noticed is that recently the AI tends to go to extreme ranges, so it might look like they are running, but in fact they are "only" going to their prefered combat distance.
If they are going at an angle away from the ship that is their current target, they are just distancing. Only when they try to keep you at exactly their back are they fleeing.

In the former case they will turn side-on once they get to their prefered combat distance or lose sight of you.

 

This bevaviour sometimes makes them do some hilariously stupid things.

I once had a night-engagement one-on-one between an enemy BC and one of my own. The enemy BC kept driving away from me until it lost sight of my ship only to make a U-turn toward me. Upon spotting me, it immediately turned away again, only managing to fire off a ranging shot and one full salvo until it was out of visual range again. Thanks to this it never managed to get fully aimed again after the initial period when we were spawned in relatively close together.

It was quite hilarious because I had better towers and thus was able to see and shoot it the entire time.

This pattern repeated itself until it was a little below 50% structure and really did try to run away, but thanks to the damage it was too slow to escape my ship and thus died without having caused any significant damage, despite having the better guns and better trained crew.

[Littorio]

37 minutes ago, Norbert Sattler said:

What I noticed is that recently the AI tends to go to extreme ranges, so it might look like they are running, but in fact they are "only" going to their prefered combat distance.
If they are going at an angle away from the ship that is their current target, they are just distancing. Only when they try to keep you at exactly their back are they fleeing.

In the former case they will turn side-on once they get to their prefered combat distance or lose sight of you.

 

This bevaviour sometimes makes them do some hilariously stupid things.

I once had a night-engagement one-on-one between an enemy BC and one of my own. The enemy BC kept driving away from me until it lost sight of my ship only to make a U-turn toward me. Upon spotting me, it immediately turned away again, only managing to fire off a ranging shot and one full salvo until it was out of visual range again. Thanks to this it never managed to get fully aimed again after the initial period when we were spawned in relatively close together.

It was quite hilarious because I had better towers and thus was able to see and shoot it the entire time.

This pattern repeated itself until it was a little below 50% structure and really did try to run away, but thanks to the damage it was too slow to escape my ship and thus died without having caused any significant damage, despite having the better guns and better trained crew.

See...this once again goes to show a fundamental issue with the game: the spotting system. A proper, sensible, at least somewhat realistic spotting mechanism would solve this issue. I too have noticed the AI dipping into and out of visual range. I believe it is as you say, they try to find you, but then another part of their AI logic tells them they need to get further away to the optimal range for their weapons/armor...only to lose contact. Thus they turn back towards you...Repeat ad nauseam until someone is dead or flees.

[Norbert Sattler]

I find it... interesting to talk about the spotting system with someone called Littorio, a ship class that had ALL the optical range-finders. ^^

[Littorio]

11 minutes ago, Norbert Sattler said:

I find it... interesting to talk about the spotting system with someone called Littorio, a ship class that had ALL the optical range-finders. ^^

😆😆 LOL exactly. I demand proper spotting for myself!

[Id10tsyndrome]

7 hours ago, Norbert Sattler said:

Yea, maybe I could have been more specific about direction, etc... they were running as they were heading straight away from me and at no point did they attempt to angle to get position on me to fire. The entire time, both enemy ships only ever fired their aft turrets.  I also left out that they were faster than I was so if they were attempting to get position and turn, they could have done so however they didn't.

 

7 hours ago, Norbert Sattler said:

 

 

What I noticed is that recently the AI tends to go to extreme ranges, so it might look like they are running, but in fact they are "only" going to their prefered combat distance.
If they are going at an angle away from the ship that is their current target, they are just distancing. Only when they try to keep you at exactly their back are they fleeing.

In the former case they will turn side-on once they get to their prefered combat distance or lose sight of you.

 

This bevaviour sometimes makes them do some hilariously stupid things.

I once had a night-engagement one-on-one between an enemy BC and one of my own. The enemy BC kept driving away from me until it lost sight of my ship only to make a U-turn toward me. Upon spotting me, it immediately turned away again, only managing to fire off a ranging shot and one full salvo until it was out of visual range again. Thanks to this it never managed to get fully aimed again after the initial period when we were spawned in relatively close together.

It was quite hilarious because I had better towers and thus was able to see and shoot it the entire time.

This pattern repeated itself until it was a little below 50% structure and really did try to run away, but thanks to the damage it was too slow to escape my ship and thus died without having caused any significant damage, despite having the better guns and better trained crew.

 

[Fangoriously]

beat the campaign through 1930 with the German underdogs, time to start over with the easy mode British. Without fail, no mater what, once they have sighted me they run, no coherent attempt to fight is made. Here is the most egregious example so far

ar

I mean, it was the right call but still

Edited December 8, 2021 by Fangoriously

[Fangoriously]

every single time

[Hardlec]

A lot of this could be fixed it the developers would give players a "strategic" viewer and let us paltry humans have context information, IE the big picture.  Until then there is no campaign.  The AI has this information.

 

[Norbert Sattler]

9 hours ago, Id10tsyndrome said:

 

 

Where did you get the first quote from? I did not post that within the last few weeks and certainly not 16 hours ago...

I might have posted this in regards to a specific academy mission monthes ago, but for sure not in regards to any of the more recent patch-versions.

[Id10tsyndrome]

The quote was mine but when I replied to your comment, it listed it as yours... Not sure how that happened.

[Norbert Sattler]

My attempt to quote you also ended up with an empty field... something seems to be broken with the quote button right now.

[Norbert Sattler]

@Fangoriously

That second screenshot is exactly what I was talking about. Since the CA is at an angle to your ship, instead of keeping you at precisely 180° of their direction, it means they are not (yet) fleeing, but "only" trying to open up the distance to something the AI thinks of as optimal... but which really isn't.

Once they get to near-enough the maximum range of their main guns they will turn broad-side on to your ship (or when they lose sight of you).

[Fangoriously]

7 hours ago, Norbert Sattler said:

@Fangoriously

That second screenshot is exactly what I was talking about. Since the CA is at an angle to your ship, instead of keeping you at precisely 180° of their direction, it means they are not (yet) fleeing, but "only" trying to open up the distance to something the AI thinks of as optimal... but which really isn't.

Once they get to near-enough the maximum range of their main guns they will turn broad-side on to your ship (or when they lose sight of you).

I took the picture when it was obvious it was just going to become another chase, very shortly after I was dead aft pinking away at it, luckily my ship was 4 knots faster, so i caught up and it got a torp fired at its aft. He turned to evade, which i mirrored, and then pegged him with my side torp followed by an aft torp to finish it off. 90% of kills are done this way in 1890, there's just no other way.

Did essentially the same to those battle ships too, my light cruiser caught up and torpedoed them each once to knock out enough engines to slow them down, and force an actual fight. They had a better chance to hit the heavy cruiser so they focused on it wile my light cruiser did most of the damage, the heavy cruiser even landed 2 torps of its own and sunk the first one i slowed down when it caught up, before it finally got enough 11 inch holes punched in it by the other 2 battleships to sink. luckily it held on long enough for me to finish them off the other 2 immediately after.

I'm pretty sure if the AI code sees that your ship has torps there's no question it just runs, at least in 1890. I cant imagine how long it would take to do a campaign that year with just guns, when i get through 1930 with the British I'll go back and test that theory.