Oolite Bulletins

Something I've never tried before is jumping out when in a red alert -- I've just tested it now and it is allowed. It seems to me this would be the safest strategy of all for pirates in this situation: turn directly away from the newly-cloaked target, accelerate to max speed, and jump out to a (pre-agreed) system. It might be the most satisfactory solution in a gaming sense, too, totally removing a bunch of too-easy kills and effectively making the cloaking device defensive-use only. (Or would that take all the fun out of it?)

For 'stay and fight' to work as a pirate tactic, reaction time will be key, IMO. Sneaking up close allows me to take down most opponents (though not a Python, unless I use a missile too) in one sustained burst, say 1.5-2.5 secs. If the enemy ships can react to the de-cloak by turning and firing within that time, I might well be in trouble. It would need several of them firing together, however. Noomi II (Boa Clipper) is a very tough girl, with full military gear; I doubt a single escort fighter can take her shields down fast enough to worry me. If I have time to kill one ship before cloaking and slipping away to restore shields and energy, the wolf-pack is ultimately doomed.

Maybe the AI could have all 3 options -- scatter but stay in-system; stay and fight; jump out -- selected at random. If it's possible to do that, it would certainly add variety and unpredictability to such encounters.

Albee wrote:

Maybe the AI could have all 3 options -- scatter but stay in-system; stay and fight; jump out -- selected at random. If it's possible to do that, it would certainly add variety and unpredictability to such encounters.

The Personalities have the option of running away or jumping out. And I promise that they're going to work with 1.76 some day.

We've discussed pirate AI response to the cloaking device, but how about the 'clean' crowd?

I've recently started targeting innocent civilians in an attempt to boost my kill count. Yes, I know... morally indefensible. It's just that I haven't been the same since reading Sandj's 'Do you partake in piracy?' poll -- https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f= ... ll#p142542.

Those of you who go in for such antisocial antics must have noticed that the escorts turn to attack when you fire on a clean convoy, but a quick dab on-off with the cloaking device sends them meekly back into formation, to continue their sedate cruise. Such easy pickings are nice for racking up the kills, certainly, but it seems rather unrealistic to me. Wouldn't they be more likely to scatter and run for it, or even jump out, much as pirates might do?

While I'm on the subject, has anyone else noticed that you don't get credited with a kill if the cloaking device is on at the time? I can't claim to have done exhaustive testing, but I've observed it several times. I've searched the forum but haven't seen this discussed anywhere.

Albee wrote:

... you don't get credited with a kill if the cloaking device is on at the time?

Yep, that is the case!

Albee wrote:

We've discussed pirate AI response to the cloaking device, but how about the 'clean' crowd?

Good point. I think we'd need something along the lines of: the mothership runs for it as per pirates, along with 50% of the escorts: the other 50% stay behind on "overwatch" and re-acquire the hostile ship when it decloaks.

Disembodied wrote:

I think we'd need something along the lines of: the mothership runs for it as per pirates, along with 50% of the escorts: the other 50% stay behind on "overwatch" and re-acquire the hostile ship when it decloaks.

Sounds good to me. A fast, aggressive response to the decloak from the 'overwatch' team would certainly make things more interesting; at present, it's 'lambs-to-the-slaughter' time.

Thinking some more, the "overwatch" period would have to expire at some point – perhaps when the mothership reaches the edge of scanner range? Then the overwatchers could turn and follow it, ready to re-acquire the hostile ship if it decloaks.

Disembodied wrote:

Thinking some more, the "overwatch" period would have to expire at some point – perhaps when the mothership reaches the edge of scanner range? Then the overwatchers could turn and follow it, ready to re-acquire the hostile ship if it decloaks.

I'm not convinced by this strategy - cloak, inject past the fleeing trader as it heads away, wait for it to separate from the overwatch group, and then attack it when half of its escorts are too far away to do much good. (Or, alternatively, pick off the separated escorts first)

What about spreading out the escort formation a bit, maybe to 5km or so, and then heading in roughly the direction of "safety" while making chaotic course changes every few seconds to make it harder for the cloaked ship to get a decent target? I think they probably need to stick together.

The fundamental problem for convoys, it seems to me, is that there's no truly effective defence against a fast ship with a cloaking device. I'm hardly the slickest of players, but I can de-cloak, kill a fighter and cloak again in about three seconds flat. There's just no way to counter that, IMO, whether they're bunched up or spread out.

Jumping out would probably be the safest course, and pirates are presumably at liberty to do just that. For convoys with delivery schedules to meet, it's maybe not an option.

Albee wrote:

Jumping out would probably be the safest course

If one was intent on killing the convoy, one would simply follow through its wormhole and dispatch it there. Thing is, they're not really 'convoys' - they're just one trader plus escorts. If several such groups actually formed a self-protecting convoy, it would make a pirate's life much harder.

cim wrote:

I'm not convinced by this strategy - cloak, inject past the fleeing trader as it heads away, wait for it to separate from the overwatch group, and then attack it when half of its escorts are too far away to do much good. (Or, alternatively, pick off the separated escorts first)

What about spreading out the escort formation a bit, maybe to 5km or so, and then heading in roughly the direction of "safety" while making chaotic course changes every few seconds to make it harder for the cloaked ship to get a decent target? I think they probably need to stick together.

As Albee points out, there's no really good defensive strategy for dealing with cloaked ships (especially fast cloaked ships). A range of responses – including scattering in all directions, occasionally milling about in panic (performTumble combined with "What? Where? How?", etc.) – might be appropriate. The cloaking device should be unique to the player, or at the least, very very rare, so most ships won't really know what's going on most of the time.

Disembodied wrote:

The cloaking device should be unique to the player, or at the least, very very rare, so most ships won't really know what's going on most of the time.

Good point. And in a similar vein, I think I'm right in saying that clean NPCs never attack other clean ships, so when we do so it would likely confuse the hell out of them. A range of responses, some chaotic and probably ill-advised, therefore seems appropriate.

El Viejo wrote:

Thing is, they're not really 'convoys' - they're just one trader plus escorts. If several such groups actually formed a self-protecting convoy, it would make a pirate's life much harder.

You're right, 'convoy' isn't an appropriate description. 'Escorted merchanter', maybe?

I'm not convinced they would be safer in a 'true' convoy, however -- I think it would just provide me with more targets. If I can take out one ship at no great risk, I can take them all in time.

What they really need, I suggest, is a Cloaked Ship Detector. Sadly, there's no-one in the NPC community smart enough to write the OXP.

Albee wrote:

What they really need, I suggest, is a Cloaked Ship Detector.

As the player, you can of course 'see' a cloaked npc, and deal with it (you just can't get a lock-on).
It's a pity npcs can't use their 'eyeballs' at close range to at least be able to fire lasers at the cloaked player.

Albee wrote:

What they really need, I suggest, is a Cloaked Ship Detector. Sadly, there's no-one in the NPC community smart enough to write the OXP.

Oh I don't know - there's some interesting alien technologies out there if you know where to look...

Disembodied wrote:

As Albee points out, there's no really good defensive strategy for dealing with cloaked ships (especially fast cloaked ships). A range of responses – including scattering in all directions, occasionally milling about in panic (performTumble combined with "What? Where? How?", etc.) – might be appropriate. The cloaking device should be unique to the player, or at the least, very very rare, so most ships won't really know what's going on most of the time.

I have been playing a bit with this. In trunk the pirates now have code that remembers the identity of a known ship that suddenly cloaks. I ported that code also to traderInterceptAI (used by traders) and to interceptAI (used by escorts, hunters and police). It looks good that a ship reacts in some way on a target that suddenly disappears. (Almost always the player)

Starting cloaked and than attacking is a different situation. The ship than has no idea who attacked him. And when a ship suddenly re-appears on the scanner, the victim can't be sure that this is the attacker. (Easy to make it known in code, but that feels as cheating). That means there is no reason to attack that ship. However, the current situation that a ship does not react at all to cloaked attacks, feels also wrong. It should at least alter its course as respond to an attack.

Fleeing ships currently jink away during fleeing. This jink position is placed on the attacker and when the attacker moves, the jink position moves also and the fleeing ship responds to it. For an invisible attacker this is impossible and the current AI gives no option to let ships alter course in a different direction. performTumble is no option as it is actually a bug in itself as it instantly sets the speed to zero. (You can scrape the pilot from its cockpit screen after that command) There is a command to set the destination to its current location. When starting with zero speed that leads to departing in random directions. I did test it, but for a moving ship it means that the current position will always lie behind the ship and the ship will just keep flying in the same direction. That asked for a new command: setDestinationToJinkPosition. That seems to work. There has always been a special AI message for a cloaked hit, but I never fond a suitable use for it. This command will do the trick. After every hit, it than changes course in a random direction. For the player it will be almost as easy to kill the ship, but at least it does not feels so stupid anymore.