Trunk changes to ship AIs

[Switeck]

Other ways to make Thargoids harder...I included (as best I could) in Switeck's Shipping OXP.

They had a chance of mounting npc-compatible equipment, such as shield boosters and injectors.
I also gave them a significantly altered thargoidAI.plist so they no longer got bored and (briefly at least) quit attacking you.
Their destination-of-choice was changed to the witchpoint instead of somewhat near the planet -- this change is significant because Thargoid groups heading to the planet spread out to the point they were no longer within scanner distance of each other as each one chose different destination points around the planet. This change also makes them less likely to get "pulled" (by fleeing npc ships) towards the main station, which they could not destroy anyway.
I added "PLAYER WITCHSPACE" = (enterPlayerWormhole); to their "ATTACK_SHIP" section, so they could even follow you if you try to hyperspace to escape.

Thargons are also changed, though not enough. I tried to get them to follow Thargoids around via a modified thargletAI.plist, but it's still somewhat unreliable. Thargoids have no way to recover or reactivate Thargons after they do "becomeUncontrolledThargon" either, so it's pretty important for Thargons to follow Thargoids closely.

I have noticed that if enough Thargoids (and possibly Thargons as well) follow the player through a wormhole, that they often crash into each other on the exit side because the first one to emerge just stops dead for ~5 seconds due to its AI.plist script.

[Eric Walch]

One of the new attack behaviours still has some flaws. When flying away from the attacking ship, the attacker was approaching but did not know when to break off and just flew into me. Yesterday it was a small ship that dyed itself in the crash, but just now it was a ferdi at injectors that hit me. I don't know if he survived, but I didn't

I probably will start fighting with he target inspector on for the next few days, to see which of the new behaviours is in use when ramming me.

[cim]

I missed a "break off attack" case in the attack behaviour selector. I think it's fixed now.

[Shipbuilder]

since the whole set of changes (missiles, thargoid AIs, turret AIs, q-mines) is still quite provisional

cim - Is their any chance that a key could be developed for entry into the shipdata.plist which would allow you to: -

1) Prevent a turret pitching below the horizontal i.e. it can rotate 360 degrees and pitch from horizontal to vertical but can't pitch downwards.

2) Limit the angle of rotation from so for example a turret can rotate say 90 degrees either side of its 'forward' facing position.

[cim]

1) Prevent a turret pitching below the horizontal i.e. it can rotate 360 degrees and pitch from horizontal to vertical but can't pitch downwards.

That's the default behaviour - they can only turn to facings within 78 degrees of their initial direction, so slightly less than a hemisphere of coverage.

Changing what the limit was to give them less rotational freedom could be added, though.