Pictures 123 to 141 show the Cobra 3 demonstrating its marksmanship skills straight from...Eric Walch wrote:It could be that the attacking ship is in behaviour_attack_target_twelve. In that case it aims for a position of 1250 meter above the target. But with a random desired_range of 750 to 2000 meter it can still mean that it heads directly to the target, when the target is so stupid to fly in the line of fire. The attacking ship will not change course as long at the position of 1250 meter above the target is still within the desired range. But than, then the target is hit, the target rolls and the position above the target moves strongly so that is leaves the desired_range. This forces the attacker to reset its course. But that is not a reaction of the hit, but a reaction of course alteration of the target. Although this would not explain a full turn away.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... hipAcademy
"Meanwhile, the Anaconda continues its slow, straight charge straight at this incompetent villain...probably confident it could regen its shields faster than the Cobra 3's hitrate."
That proved rather hard to get the camera angle correct and roughly match speed -- I had to fly a parallel course rather than a converging course with nothing but estimates to go by. And my ship's top speed is so high (0.99 LM) that even a single "tick" on the speedbar is generally "too fast" or "too slow". I settled for "too slow" to always keep both ships in the picture.
At the time of the Cobra 3's turn (pic 140), it is still ~4 km from the Anaconda. ...assuming based on my ship's radar that the Anaconda is <1 km in front of my ship. Even a relatively narrow firing arc/window for the Cobra 3 should still put the Annaconda in it's view.
What is interesting in this series of pictures is how steady the Anaconda is. It only starts to noticeably turn (pic 142) after the Cobra has almost completed its U-turn...and apparently not in response to the 1 hit the Cobra 3. ...Because for some strange reason that's the first time it appears to fire back (pic 141) at the Cobra 3 during that whole pass!
My guess is the Anaconda is not firing on approach because it's still _stupidly_ in the process of traveling to an arbitrary destination near/at/past the Cobra 3. Only being hit wakes it out of that mode and back into a targeting+firing action. ...Which causes the Cobra 3 to then go into a turn instead of continuing to fire.
Action/reaction interactions, definitely "buried below" the AI.plist level/layer I normally deal with.
In short, emergent behavior.
Guessing further, the Cobra 3 may not be turning due to frustration but due to regarding the change in the Anaconda's behavior as "coming under attack" even though they were already fighting to begin with. Whether this is due to "wanting" to dodge the attack/s or simply to open the range to standard "chase" distances (about 10 km?)...I don't have a clue. It doesn't seem to stay in that state long, because at least if the Cobra 3 is hit it turns right around again to continue shooting even though the range between the 2 has already closed further.