Returning to escorts - escorts not escorting

Helvellyn · Post by **Helvellyn** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 8:36 pm

I reported this a while back, but I couldn't be certain there was a genuine problem (it was suggested that the non-escorting escorts had gone off after a pirate and lost their mothership).

This time I'd ran into an Anaconda and a collection of Cobra Mk Is very shortly after exiting hyperspace. The Cobras were flying towards the planet, faster than the Anaconda. They didn't appear to be trying to escort it. Running ahead of them, there was no sign of any pirates. Dumping the entity list (I didn't know about that back when I first posted) had them all in state 'LOOK_FOR_BUSINESS', running the escort AI. They were certainly supposed to be escorting the Anaconda, and the Anaconda thought so to - when I opened fire on one escort, the Anaconda started attacking me, although the other Cobra Mk Is completely ignored what was going on.

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Sat Aug 18, 2007 10:07 am

I can second that, I am encountering lone escorts all the time now. Usually four typical escort ships (Sidewinders, Cobra MK1, etc.) flying in formation from planet to witchpoint, with no formation leader. I am encountering up to three, even four such groups in one system.

And I would say, I didn't use to see as many of them in 1.65.

JensAyton · Post by **JensAyton** » Sat Aug 18, 2007 2:01 pm

In testing the Ship.escorts property for JavaScript, I discovered a number of problems with the escort system (not yet resolved). Among other things, only some of the escorts in my test case register with their owner. The rest are presumably orphans like you describe.

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 9:28 am

Can that perhaps be the source of my problem as well, that in Anarchies.oxp the Sentinel Asteroids never start escorting their mother, the Hacker Outpost? To be more precise, they never get a reaction to their suggestEscort.

Wiggy · Post by **Wiggy** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 1:18 pm

And what should escorts do when their leader is destroyed?

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 3:21 pm

If they are not killed as well, they should offer their service to another potential leader. That's what the state "LOOK_FOR_BUSINESS" is for.

Helvellyn · Post by **Helvellyn** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 11:14 pm

After finishing off the original attacker, I'd hope.

Wiggy · Post by **Wiggy** » Fri Aug 24, 2007 10:24 am

Commander McLane wrote:
If they are not killed as well, they should offer their service to another potential leader. That's what the state "LOOK_FOR_BUSINESS" is for.

And yet when I hang around the streets "looking for business", the police move me on. Tsk.

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Sat Aug 25, 2007 3:05 pm

Well, space is vast, and police vipers are few. So this risk is fairly small.

Captain Hesperus · Post by **Captain Hesperus** » Sat Aug 25, 2007 10:17 pm

Wiggy wrote:
And yet when I hang around the streets "looking for business", the police move me on. Tsk.

Maybe not wearing day-glo orange fishnets and 6" scarlet stilettos would make life easier for you.....

Captain Hesperus

Post by **Eric Walch** » Wed Sep 05, 2007 7:59 pm

I just started playing with 1.69.1 (after 1.65) and I also noticed for the second time a group of four Cobra Mark 1 ships flying in a kind of formation. This time nearby a Anaconda (That has these kind of ships as escort). This time I made an entity dump. The cobras were flying as route1PatrolAI ships.

Helvellyn wrote:

They were certainly supposed to be escorting the Anaconda, and the Anaconda thought so to - when I opened fire on one escort, the Anaconda started attacking me, although the other Cobra Mk Is completely ignored what was going on.

I also attacked an escort and the annaconda immedeately responded in firing a missile. But in my case all the escorts reacted also. But that must be if they are acting as route1Patrol ships.
Could it be a bug introduced with the auto AI as the Cobra MK I has the autoAI set, but has no escort in his roles?

Maybe this helps in solving the sourse of the problem.

JensAyton · Post by **JensAyton** » Wed Sep 05, 2007 10:41 pm

No. Escorts automatically have their AIs set to escortAI.plist regardless of auto_ai.

Post by **Eric Walch** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 8:12 pm

Maybe I have a clue why some escorts are not following their mother since version 1.69

I just jumped in a new system and saw a Boa flying one way, and the escorts the other way.
The escortsAreSetUp of the mother was not set although I saw 4 of them flying away.
The 4 escorts had as target: Target: <ShipEntity 0x86cb000>{"Cobra Rapier" ID: 657 position: (7258.94, 8364.79, 87796.3) scanClass: CLASS_NEUTRAL status: STATUS_IN_FLIGHT}

This last thing is the problem. It is probably changed in 1.69.1 (of witch I not have the code so it is just guessing). The escorts used to be placed in the system, preset with their mother as target and their AI already forced into the ESCORTING state.

This is probably changed and the escorts get in the LOOK_FOR_BUSINESS state to early. Here is the function scanForFormatonLeader active. This function find the nearest ship that has not an escort role and has the same scanclass as the escort. Therefor the escort sometimes finds the wrong ship and keeps trying to assign to this ship until all possible leaders are gone and than changes to a route1patrolAI.

It would at least help when scanForFormatonLeader would only find thips that can have escorts. Than the ecorts would probably find the intended leader sooner.

JensAyton · Post by **JensAyton** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 11:14 am

I’ve made a note. Incidentally, the 1.69.1 code is at svn://svn.berlios.de/viewcvs/oolite-linux/tags/1.69.1-mac/ (strictly, this has been updated to 1.69.1.2-mac).