Assassins assassinating each other?

[Redspear]

Did some testing for an oxp recently and accepted a parcel contract to a system that was several jumps away.
Predictably, I met the odd assassin but, only being in an adder, my main tactic was to hit the injectors and run. However, once or twice I ran out of fuel and was being chased by a pack.

Here's where it got a bit weird...

On one such occasion I noticed that their fire seemed to have little effect (could be oxp related) so I decided to stop dodging (I'd sold my laser ) and just head straight for the station.

My foes lined up behind me and took their shots, often hitting each other. By the time I ran into police, the 4 (could have been five) 'miscreants' had whittled each other down to just two (one of which was still taking occasional fire from his fellow).

I wondered if I'd somehow missed the others flying away but I noticed that I was being followed at my approximate speed by what was presumably the debris from said ships...

All of the above was from the 1.82 release.

[cim]

With the normal quality AI not having "dodge when hit" enabled, this can happen if you manage to get hostile ships perfectly lined up - and the Adder is a small enough target you might even get away with it.

(Enabling "dodge when hit" by default is an AI change I'd like to consider - but it would make combat, especially in the early game, much harder to win ... though probably easier to survive if your objective is to buy time until allies arrive, as a ship which is dodging isn't shooting at you)

[Disembodied]

With the normal quality AI not having "dodge when hit" enabled, this can happen if you manage to get hostile ships perfectly lined up - and the Adder is a small enough target you might even get away with it.

(Enabling "dodge when hit" by default is an AI change I'd like to consider - but it would make combat, especially in the early game, much harder to win ... though probably easier to survive if your objective is to buy time until allies arrive, as a ship which is dodging isn't shooting at you)

It is worth differentiating between "dodge when hit" and "dodge when taking damage greater than X"? So that you could potentially nibble an opponent to death with a pulse laser before they start dodging (because they don't "notice" the incremental damage), whereas the impact caused by a beam or military laser would be more likely to trigger a dodge reflex?

[Redspear]

With the normal quality AI not having "dodge when hit" enabled, this can happen if you manage to get hostile ships perfectly lined up - and the Adder is a small enough target you might even get away with it.

That would certainly explain it. Thanks.